Experts: two points of view on the Caribbean crisis. §3.1 Detention of international tension as a result of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis

Chapter seven. Caribbean crisis: private opinions

The past years have moved the participants in the Caribbean Crisis - citizens of the USSR, the USA and Cuba - to a considerable distance from the events in which they took part. At the end of the 20th century, the vast majority of them completed their civil service and acquired a new status: they became "private persons". How did these individuals evaluate what they directly or indirectly took part in?

The reflection of the opinions of the participants in the Caribbean crisis has been preserved in numerous, but scattered, published and unpublished memoirs, in newspaper and magazine articles, in books that some of them once managed to publish. The author was able to find some statements and assessments of the main characters of those past events, but, unfortunately, not all yet. Nevertheless, what we managed to collect and present in a logical sequence is undoubtedly of considerable interest and allows us not only to understand their attitude to the crisis itself, but also reveals some mechanisms for making responsible decisions, explains previously incomprehensible, but important episodes of relations between former comrades-in-arms who influenced the development of the crisis, and therefore - on the course and development of history.

The Prime Minister of the USSR Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, having retired, "dictated" his memoirs, which he called "Time. People. Power” 256 .

He devoted one of the chapters to the Cuban Missile Crisis. Also of interest are the statements of Khrushchev, uttered by him publicly in different years and dedicated to the Caribbean crisis. Here are some of them:

“America has surrounded the Soviet Union with its bases, it has placed missiles around us. We knew that US missile troops were stationed in Turkey and Italy.”

"The purpose of installing (in Cuba - V.A.) missiles with nuclear weapons, as I argued, was not to attack the United States, but solely for the defense of Cuba."

“We, in fact, sought to shake America up, and its leadership to feel what war is, that it is at their doorstep, that therefore it is not necessary to cross the line, a military clash should be avoided.”

Khrushchev's statements cited speak volumes.

First, it follows from them that the Soviet prime minister understood that the US missile bases deployed in Turkey and Italy increased the threat to the security of the USSR. The flight time of American missiles to objects on Soviet territory was reduced to 10-15 minutes. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to respond adequately within such a time limit. The act of the US government placing its missiles in Turkey was unfriendly and provocative.

Secondly, as Khrushchev argued, the purpose of deploying Soviet missiles in Cuba "was not to attack the United States, but solely for the defense of Cuba." It follows from this that the Soviet government was informed that the United States was preparing to invade Cuba and intended to overthrow the regime of Fidel Castro. This statement by Khrushchev directly relates to the topic of our study. Previously, one could treat him differently, given that Nikita Sergeevich loved and knew how to embellish his successes in all fields. But after reading this book, the reader can be convinced that Khrushchev was really aware of the secret plans of the US government regarding Cuba and acted quite reasonably.

And, thirdly, as follows from what Khrushchev said, he wanted America to "shake up", that is, so that its leadership would remember that they are not alone in this world, and if they stepped on their feet, they should at least apologize.

It follows from the foregoing that Nikita Sergeevich did not change his attitude to the crisis and the reasons that gave rise to it until the end of his life.

In the memoirs "Time. People. Power”, the former prime minister of the USSR made one extremely valuable and, it seems, philosophical conclusion, which should also be mentioned. It is as follows: "If you are guided by reasonable goals and the desire to prevent war, to resolve controversial issues by compromise, then such a compromise can be found."

In this conclusion, which Khrushchev left for future generations, there are three parts that are inextricably linked and complement each other. Khrushchev invites all statesmen to “be guided by reasonable goals” and “the desire to prevent war” in their actions, since war in the age of nuclear missile weapons will inevitably lead to Armageddon, after which nothing living and reasonable will remain on planet Earth. Further, the active warrior of the Caribbean crisis, on the decisions of which if not everything, then a lot depended, confidently argued that all “disputable issues” should be resolved only “by compromise”. And third, with a mutual desire, the parties to the disputes can always reach the “desired compromise”.

Khrushchev found it possible to assess the personality of his main rival, American President John F. Kennedy, whom he initially underestimated. “In my memory,” he wrote, “the best memories of the President of the United States have been preserved. He showed sobriety of mind, did not allow himself to be intimidated, did not allow himself to be intoxicated by the power of the United States, did not go for broke. It didn't take much intelligence to start a war. And he showed wisdom, statesmanship, was not afraid of condemning himself from the right and won the world.

The world was won not only by John Kennedy, but also by Khrushchev, and all of us, and, most importantly, our children and grandchildren. The world, which in October 1962 really hung by a thread above the nuclear abyss, was saved from destruction. Life goes on and that's the main thing.

Recalling tense Soviet-American relations, US President John F. Kennedy was less talkative. Nevertheless, he managed to utter a phrase that became his testament to all the inhabitants of the planet Earth: "Either humanity will end the war, or the war will end humanity."

This was how the leaders of the USSR and the USA, the leaders of the great powers, on whose actions the peaceful future of our planet depended in many respects, assessed the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And what did the Prime Minister of the Republic of Cuba, Fidel Castro, say about the events of October 1962 in the post-crisis years?

The leader of the Cuban state devoted to this topic many statements made in different years. Fidel did not change his assessments. Some of them sound like political declarations, in others there is sincere gratitude to the Soviet Union for the military assistance and support provided at a difficult moment, in others - pride in the people of a small country who was not afraid of an eminent and powerful neighbor who wanted to impose his rules of the game on Cuba . The most striking of Castro's assessments are reproduced on these pages.

"We did not hesitate to repulse the mercenary invasion of Playa Giron and proclaim the socialist character of our Revolution."

"Our Revolution was not afraid of the threat of invasion and nuclear war in October 1962, which arose as a result of the crisis caused by the criminal actions and threats of the United States against our Motherland."

“If there were no Soviet Union, the imperialists would not hesitate to make a direct military attack on our country. It was the might of the Soviet Union that held back the imperialist aggression against our Fatherland.

How did other participants in those events treat the events of October 1962 in the post-crisis years? Let us turn to the memoirs of Marshal D.F. Yazov. In 1962, as part of the GSVK, he commanded a motorized rifle regiment.

In 2006, Yazov, as a military leader, former Minister of Defense of the USSR, recalling the events in the Caribbean, reflected on what could happen if the Soviet-American events escalated further.

In his opinion, “the US military operation against Cuba would take place in two stages and would include an air stage and an operation to invade the island. It draws attention to the fact that even then the Americans "gravitated" to such a construction of military operations. It was this model that they repeated 30 years later in the first war against Iraq (1990-1991), and then in Yugoslavia (1999) and again against Iraq (2003).

Marshal Yazov had no doubt that the targets of destruction during the first air strike would be, first of all, the positions of the Soviet R-12 and R-14 missile regiments, air defense anti-aircraft missile divisions, airfields and the MiG-21 and Il- 28. American air raids would have caused fierce opposition from Soviet and Cuban air defense systems.

Discussing how events would develop further, Yazov wrote: “Given the American “moral vulnerability” from heavy losses, the results of the first hours and days of the operation could have had a negative impact on the morale of the American troops. By the way, on October 26, 1962, Secretary of Defense R. McNamara reported to John F. Kennedy that in the first ten days of hostilities, American troops landed on the island would lose 18,484 people. It is difficult to say how the Pentagon made such calculations, predicting their possible losses with an accuracy of one person. However, this figure is clearly underestimated, if only because American intelligence estimated the GSVK at 5-10 thousand people. In fact, in October we already had more than 40 thousand people, and the Americans then did not know about the presence of tactical nuclear weapons.

Assessing the state of morale of his former subordinates - Soviet soldiers and officers, Marshal Yazov wrote:

“As for the composition of the Soviet grouping of troops in Cuba, given the hopelessness of the situation (there is nowhere to retreat!) They would be ready to fulfill their duty to the end, in any conditions, with any losses. They were ready to fight in Russian. I saw it, I felt it, I knew it. We simply would not have had any other choice: the Group of Forces had no reserves. It is impossible to transfer reinforcements over 11 thousand kilometers by sea under the conditions of a naval blockade. At that time, we could only hope for ourselves, for our weapons, for the strength of our spirit.

“In moral terms,” Marshal Yazov emphasized, “we were much stronger than the Americans, and they probably guessed about it. This also served as a deterrent for the American "hawks" 259 .

Speaking about the course of hostilities, he said that “a protracted war on the territory of Cuba would require the mobilization of significant US reserves - both human, economic, and military. Inevitably, this armed conflict, in the end, would go beyond the local and limited. And again - the temptation to use nuclear weapons. Most likely, the losing side, or both sides in the event of a deadlock, prolonging the war” 260 .

Thus, Yazov concluded that any conflict involving states that have nuclear weapons in their armies, in the event of a “stalemate” or “war prolongation”, can escalate into a war with the use of nuclear weapons. This conclusion fully applies to our time. In the years since the Cuban Missile Crisis, the club of nuclear powers has expanded. In addition to Russia, the USA, China, Great Britain and France, Israel, South Africa, India, Pakistan, North Korea and, possibly, some other states broke into or crawled into it. Therefore, the modern world is less stable than it was in 1962. Considering the peculiarities of modern times, we can say that the Caribbean Crisis is a textbook that should not be forgotten.

Of considerable interest in this regard is the opinion on the Caribbean crisis of the President of the Academy of Military Sciences of the Russian Federation, General of the Army M.A. Gareev. Speaking about the causes of the Caribbean crisis, he said: “Was there an alternative to deploying Soviet missiles in Cuba? Put yourself in the place of the political and military leadership of the USSR. Then after all, not everything was known about the plans of the United States.

From these words it is difficult to understand what the Soviet leadership proceeded from when deciding to deploy a Group of Soviet Forces and a missile division in Cuba. M. A. Gareev believes that "the political leadership of the USSR did not know everything about the plans of the United States." Judging by the documents declassified and cited in this book, it can now be argued that the Soviet leadership decided to create the GSVK, because it had at its disposal reliable intelligence that the United States was preparing in October 1962 to carry out an operation to overthrow the regime of F. Castro . It was this information obtained by the intelligence officers of the KGB and the GRU that Khrushchev and his associates took into account in the process of developing military-political measures, which were ahead of the actions of the American side. It can be said with good reason that the military phase of Operation Anadyr was carried out brilliantly. A group of Soviet troops, created in Cuba in a short time, became the shield that prevented US aggression against Cuba. The invasion of CIA mercenaries, the bombardment of important objects on the island by aircraft, followed by the landing of marines on the territory of an independent state, did not take place.

It should be emphasized that if the military part of providing assistance to Cuba was thoroughly thought out by the Soviet leadership and the command of the Armed Forces of the USSR and clearly carried out, then the information and diplomatic support completely failed. Soviet diplomacy and the media did not fulfill their tasks. However, this is a topic for another independent study.

In assessing the situation that developed around Cuba in October 1962, Gareev made the correct prediction: “If the Americans landed on the island, then we would have to either start a war with the United States, or accept defeat. Indeed, what would be the reaction of the entire socialist camp in response to the seizure by the Americans of a state that proclaimed its adherence to socialism? And could the countries of socialism understand the inaction of the USSR in this case?

Based on this, it was decided to act firmly, decisively, preempt the Americans and deliver missiles. And why, in the end, the Americans could have their own bases and put missiles on them in Turkey, in Italy, but the Soviet Union could not? 261

Asking his rhetorical question, Gareev touched on the most important cause of the Caribbean crisis. It consisted in the fact that the United States of America was the first to deploy its missiles near the borders of the opposing side. The US government did this in 1957. By deploying Jupiter missiles in Turkey, American leaders could not help but realize that sooner or later, an adequate military response would follow from the Soviet Union, implemented in 1962. The appearance of the GSVK, which also included a division of medium-range missiles, created for the Americans the same alarming situation that had already been in the Soviet Union.

Information about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba, which became known to the US leadership in mid-October 1962, initially caused a nervous shock in the highest spheres of power. President Kennedy developed a high fever and ran his country over the phone for a couple of days. A week later, the US President announced a quarantine (blockade) of Cuba and an ultimatum, the essence of which was a demand calling on the Soviet government to immediately dismantle missiles and remove Soviet aircraft carrying atomic weapons from Cuba. Otherwise, the US president was ready to take other measures, and this meant a further aggravation of the crisis and the likelihood of air and other strikes on military targets in Cuba.

The Kremlin coolly watched what was happening in Washington. Khrushchev and his associates even found it possible to attend a performance at the Bolshoi Theatre. This, of course, was a demonstrative act, but it undoubtedly had a positive effect both on the Soviet layman and on foreign guests, of whom there were many in Moscow. American intelligence officers also could not help informing Washington about Khrushchev's trip to the theater. But at this tense time, Moscow was expecting proposals from America to resolve the crisis that had arisen. Showing composure, endurance and readiness for any development of events, Khrushchev and his assistants adequately survived the difficult time.

Despite Kennedy's formidable public statements, his defiant appeals to the nation and orders to bring the US Armed Forces to full combat readiness, as well as the frequent flights of American strategic bombers in the direction of the USSR, Moscow stubbornly waited for constructive proposals.

Khrushchev and Kennedy exchanged personal messages. Soon proposals were received to resolve the crisis, but they did not come directly from the US President or his official representatives, but were transferred through unofficial channels - advisers to the USSR embassy G. N. Bolshakov and A. S. Feklisov. Since the contacts of these embassy employees with US representatives close to the “highest power” were unofficial, they were not recorded in official protocol documents. Within a few years, the memory of these important crisis-management mechanisms has been erased or deliberately distorted. Therefore, in the post-crisis years, disputes arose between the main participants in the settlement of the crisis, which remained unresolved. The main one is who was the first to propose the terms for settling the crisis - the USSR or the USA. And the second - who owned the idea of the deal, the essence of which was the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for the dismantling of American missiles in Turkey.

A dispute over key issues of settling the Caribbean crisis arose not only between the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kennedy administration, but also among the employees of the Soviet embassy who were directly involved in discussions on these problems. Among them: Soviet Ambassador to the United States A.F. Dobrynin, embassy adviser A.S. Feklisov (KGB resident) and deputy editor-in-chief of Soviet Life magazine G.N. Bolshakov (GRU officer).

Let us first consider the assessments of the Soviet ambassador Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin. To do this, let's turn to the book of his memoirs, in which there is a chapter "The Cuban Crisis (October 1962)". It contains only 30 pages. Here Dobrynin sets out his assessment of the causes of the emergence, development and settlement of the crisis. It is noteworthy that the Soviet ambassador calls the events that took place in October 1962, as is customary in the United States, the Cuban crisis. Perhaps, initially he was preparing a manuscript for publication in America and was afraid that the publisher would still call the October events of 1962 not the Caribbean, as was customary in the USSR and as is customary in Russia, but the Cuban crisis.

What episodes of the crisis left the greatest mark on the memory of the Soviet ambassador?

Naturally, attention is drawn to the detailed description of the meeting between Robert Kennedy and Dobrynin, which took place on October 27 in the office of the Minister of Justice. This meeting, as we now know, was not the climax of the crisis, but its final stage. Even before it, representatives of the administration through nominees (journalists F. Holman, C. Bartlett and D. Scali) proposed conditions for resolving the crisis, which came from the "highest power" of the United States. Moscow appreciated these conditions. Dobrynin, as a representative of the USSR, had to make sure that the American side would not officially renounce its unofficial proposals. For this, a meeting between Robert Kennedy (Secretary of State D. Rusk was excluded from the measures to resolve the crisis) and the Soviet ambassador was needed.

The meeting between Kennedy and Dobrynin is a delicate moment in the history of the Cuban Missile Crisis of particular importance. He confirms that the reason that forced the Soviet government to decide on the creation of a Group of Soviet Forces in Cuba was the planned secret operation of the CIA "Mongoose", about which the Soviet leadership was warned in a timely manner by the residents of the GRU and the KGB.

During the meeting, Kennedy was alarmed, Dobrynin noted that he even slept at night in his office. What was the reason for this? First of all, apparently, in the fact that the adventure against Cuba, which he led on behalf of the President of the United States, failed. Under the circumstances, it was pointless to launch an invasion of CIA mercenaries. Moreover, Soviet missiles were detected in Cuba, which unexpectedly radically changed the situation.

It was necessary to find a way out of the crisis that would allow the US administration, and not Khrushchev, to "save face." The international community did not yet know anything about Operation Mongoose, so at that moment Kennedy was most afraid of revealing the fact that the American president and government were involved in a conspiracy against F. Castro.

The Soviet ambassador remembered "the fever of the October missile crisis, when the world peace literally hung in the balance." This is a general but memorable assessment nonetheless.

Further, Dobrynin writes: “To understand the full danger of a military conflict around Cuba, it is enough to recall that Soviet short and medium-range missiles had dozens of nuclear charges, the targets of which could be the largest cities in America, including New York, Washington, Chicago.”

It is unlikely that Soviet missiles could have reached Chicago, the fate of which the Soviet ambassador was worried about, but the American missiles, which were based in Turkey and Italy, really threatened the security of the largest cities of the Soviet Union located in the European part of the country, but about this alarming fact for his fellow citizens Dobrynin for some reason did not mention.

Assessing the post-crisis development of Soviet-American relations, Dobrynin wrote that the Soviet "military establishment took advantage of this (the crisis - V.L.) in order to achieve a new program for building up nuclear missile weapons, which gave a new impetus to the arms race, which ... continued for almost thirty more years, although attempts were made to limit this race to some limits” 262 .

The fact that since 1945, when American bombers dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was the United States that unleashed an arms race that ultimately led to the Cuban Missile Crisis, Anatoly Fedorovich did not say a word in his memoirs. Nevertheless, he considered it necessary to emphasize that in subsequent years, when he was the USSR ambassador to the United States, attempts were made to limit this race.

And the last thing the ambassador writes about is the participation in the settlement of the crisis of the embassy adviser AS Feklisov (Fomina). We already know that he acted in Washington as a foreign intelligence resident of the KGB.

Dobrynin assessed the work of Feklisov during the Caribbean crisis in this way: “Our intelligence did not have reliable sources of information in Washington at that moment. It is no coincidence that the resident Fomin himself went to a bar-restaurant to obtain information from the correspondent” 263 .

Hero of Russia, KGB Colonel A.S. Feklisov also wrote his memoirs. Based on them, let's try to tell what the KGB resident in Washington thought about the crisis.

Feklisov owns the book “Recognition of a scout. Atomic bomb. Cuban Missile Crisis - True and False. Summarizing the assessments of the crisis that appeared in subsequent years, he wrote: “Sometimes in Washington and Moscow voices are heard that during the Caribbean crisis the Soviet Union supposedly retreated under pressure from Washington, frightened by American military power. In my opinion, they say so in vain. The crisis was settled as a result of a mutual reasonable compromise: one side agreed to withdraw the missiles from Cuba, the other to remove them from Turkey. This is how the threat of a nuclear collision with unpredictable consequences was eliminated. In addition, the USSR managed to obtain a commitment from the United States that they would not invade Cuba in the future. This arrangement is still in effect to this day.

Recalling the events of the Caribbean crisis, Feklisov repeatedly asked himself three questions related not to its causes, but to the tactics of negotiating the most acute problems that the John F. Kennedy administration used. They are of interest and make one think about some of the moral problems of both the crisis itself and the behavior of government officials who were involved in it.

First question: “What was the real reason why Ambassador Dobrynin did not sign the telegram on October 26, 1962, containing the conditions for the solution of the Caribbean crisis transmitted by the President of the United States through John Scali?” 265

Answering this question, Feklisov wrote that the ambassador's motivation was based on the fact that he "could not do this because the Foreign Ministry did not give the embassy the authority to conduct such negotiations."

Feklisov believed that the ambassador's refusal to sign his report to Moscow was “just a frivolous excuse. Should the embassy staff only formally follow the instructions of their department and refrain from taking initiative in their activities, especially in crisis situations, when the technical means that ensure the embassy's communication with Moscow cannot keep up with rapidly changing events?

Feklisov came to the conclusion that “if Scali had transferred the terms of the conflict settlement to any of the Foreign Ministry employees, Dobrynin would have immediately handed over the dispatch to the destination with his signature. He did not sign my telegram, as this would mean that the embassy stood aside from settling the Caribbean crisis. In addition, it is possible that the ambassador thought: I will not dare to send such an important telegram to the Center, then the White House will be forced to turn to it with its proposals.

“In this case,” Feklisov concluded his reasoning, “Dobrynin was summed up by an overly narrow departmental approach to living, creative work.” Apparently, the retired KGB resident was right.

The second question is: "Why didn't the White House convey, as is customary, the conditions for the liquidation of the Caribbean crisis through the ambassador?"

In an attempt to find an answer to this question, Feklisov made a cautious suggestion, which boils down to the following: “I believe that President Kennedy did not want to do this, since at that time he was hostile to Dobrynin and Gromyko. The fact is that on the eve of the crisis, the Soviet Foreign Minister assured the owner of the White House that the USSR was supplying Cuba only with peaceful equipment that did not pose any threat to US security. In general, the Soviet Union will not take any foreign policy steps that would complicate Soviet-American relations on the eve of the midterm elections in the United States. The Soviet ambassador naturally echoed his minister. After receiving documentary data about Soviet missiles in Cuba at the White House, Gromyko and Dobrynin's statement was regarded as a deliberate lie. This was talked about a lot in the American press. During a roundtable discussion in Moscow in January 1989, M. Bundy and T. Sorenson openly confirmed in the presence of Gromyko and Dobrynin that the latter had lied to President Kennedy.

The mention of the meeting in Washington between Foreign Minister A. Gromyko and John F. Kennedy is an exceptionally important point. On October 18, the CIA was already completing the training of mercenaries for the invasion of Cuba, and, carried away by it, the leadership and agents of the CIA could not obtain information that the Soviet Union was completing the deployment of a Group of Forces in Cuba, which included a division of medium-range missiles. Kennedy said nothing to Gromyko about the impending attack, it would blow up the world. The Soviet foreign minister was aware of this provocation prepared by the United States and may have expected the president to inform him of it, but Gromyko's expectations were not met. Under these conditions, he also preferred not to tell the president anything about the presence of missiles in Cuba, which Kennedy already knew about from the reports of CIA director D. McCone. Ambassador Dobrynin, who was present at this meeting, did not know either one or the other.

Feklisov's third question is: “Why do President Kennedy's aides - P. Salinger and A. Schlesinger and others - hide the truth in their books that President Kennedy made a proposal for a peaceful settlement of the nuclear missile conflict, and write that for the first time they, these proposals were allegedly received from the adviser of the Soviet embassy Fomin?

Anticipating the answer to this question, Feklisov recalled that even in the text of the memorial plaque installed in the Occidental restaurant in Washington, it was written: “During the tense period of the Cuban crisis (October 1962), the mysterious Russian Mr. from Cuba to ABC correspondent John Scoli. This meeting served to eliminate the threat of the possibility of nuclear war.

Interesting inscription. Rather, the history of its appearance and the reason why it was made are interesting. The sign claims that in this restaurant, "the mysterious Russian Mr. X" passed the proposal to take the missiles out of Cuba to John Scali. But everything was different. And for the Soviet leadership it did not matter who first made this proposal. The declassified GRU materials related to the activities of Colonel Bolshakov in Washington also indicate that F. Holman and C. Bartlett informed him of similar conditions of the "highest power" of the United States, which confirms the assertion of A. S. Feklisov that it was D. Scali invited him to a meeting and offered him a deal to resolve the crisis.

We have already said earlier that the question of who was the first to formulate the terms for resolving the crisis is one of the key ones. It should be added that the one who first proposed these conditions is the main culprit in causing the crisis. Such a conclusion involuntarily follows from the causal relationships and mysteries that have long shrouded the decision-making mechanisms in both Moscow and Washington.

The problems of personal and official relations between Feklisov and the Soviet ambassador, which arose during the Caribbean crisis, worried the KGB resident until the last days of his life. Recalling the days of work in Washington, Feklisov wrote: “In books published in the USA, they write that on Saturday, October 27, R. Kennedy met with Dobrynin. Some indicate that their meeting took place in the Soviet embassy, while others indicate that they met in the office of the Minister of Justice. In fact, they met twice that day. I witnessed their first meeting at the embassy. On Dobrynin's call, at about 2 pm, I came to the hall on the second floor, where he was sitting with R. Kennedy on the sofa and talking about something. It seemed to me that the dialogue was difficult. I approached them. The ambassador, nervously, turned to me for some information. His speech, unlike usual, was inconsistent. I immediately realized that my arrival was needed not by the ambassador, but by his interlocutor. R. Kennedy sat leaning over and looked at me from under his brows with an inquisitive, and perhaps even condemning, look. He came to the embassy, apparently in order to personally look at Fomin's adviser and make sure that he had conveyed to the ambassador the president's well-known proposal.

The second meeting between them took place on the same day in the evening. Khrushchev did not reply until a quarter past seven. The president instructed his brother to talk to Dobrynin again. The meeting took place in R. Kennedy's office. The Minister of Justice told the Ambassador:

We must receive an assurance that the missiles will be dismantled no later than tomorrow. Moscow must understand that if it does not demolish these bases, then we will demolish them.

For his part, Dobrynin, acting on Khrushchev's last letter to Kennedy, insisted that the United States agree in exchange for removing Soviet missiles from Cuba to remove American Jupiter missiles from Turkey. The ambassador's arguments, based on the principle of equal security, were very convincing. Robert Kennedy, after consultations by telephone with the White House, stated that President Kennedy agreed to this on the condition that, firstly, the Jupiters would be removed three to five months after the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba, and, secondly, this agreement will be kept strictly confidential and will not be included in the official text of the agreement to eliminate the Caribbean crisis.

Robert Kennedy explained this by the difficult situation in the United States and the need for appropriate negotiations with Turkey and other NATO member states.

Further, Feklisov writes that “late in the evening, the Minister of Justice also met with the adviser to our embassy, G. Bolshakov, through whom the heads of the USSR and the USA sometimes exchanged confidential letters. In the conversation, R. Kennedy repeated to Bolshakov what he had already said to Dobrynin. At the same time, he stressed that if a positive response from Moscow is not received in the next 24 hours, it will be impossible for the president to restrain the military from invading Cuba. Bolshakov did not write anything about this meeting; documents confirming its holding could not be identified.

Concluding the description of the disturbing events, Feklisov wrote: “The fact that the emissaries of the White House on October 27 as many as four (two. - V. L.) times sought from the Soviet embassy a quick response from the Kremlin to the proposal made by the president testifies to John F. Kennedy’s desire to avoid a military conflict solve the emerging crisis peacefully and thereby avoid the deaths of thousands and thousands of people - American, Soviet and Cuban citizens.

Feklisov in his memoirs tried to describe what he knew and remembered, and Alexander Semenovich's memory was excellent, he remembered many details. They left a deep mark on his soul, and the KGB resident authentically reproduced them in his memoirs.

The three questions that troubled him until the last days of his life touched and still touch on complex problems. The author of the book believes that these questions should be asked to politicians, diplomats and other citizens of the United States and Russia who are interested in international relations, are responsible for the level of their development and are ready to draw useful lessons from historical events for their practical activities carried out in modern conditions.

If readers have carefully read the contents of the book "Armageddon Canceled", they can also give their answers to the questions of the KGB resident Colonel A. S. Feklisov.

One of the main characters in the book and a real participant in the Caribbean crisis, as now reliably established, was GRU Colonel Georgy Nikitovich Bolshakov. What memories of the Cuban Missile Crisis did he keep in his soul? How did he assess those events, the participation in them of the leaders of the GRU and his colleagues in intelligence activities?

It should immediately be noted that the name of Georgy Nikitovich Bolshakov has already been forgotten. If someone remembers him, it is only in connection with the fact that he was an officer for special assignments of the Minister of Defense of the USSR G.K. Zhukov and met with the brother of the US President Robert Kennedy.

And what did Bolshakov write in his memoirs about the Caribbean crisis? These memoirs were found only in the Russian State Library. Getting acquainted with them, each reader can be convinced that their author was a modest and decent person who knew how to appreciate real male friendship, was faithful to the cause he served, and tried with all his might to contribute to the positive development of Soviet-American relations.

“When we recall the events of those years,” Bolshakov wrote, “we should not forget that even today ... the agreement, suffered through suffering during the 13 tragic days of October 1962, is being observed. The Cuban Republic is alive, which means that our actions have justified themselves, although some still believe that the signed treaty was a concession to American imperialism. In fact, by the end of these thirteen days, the world looked into the abyss of a nuclear catastrophe. And credit must be given to both Premier Khrushchev and President Kennedy for having both the political courage to come to the realization that there would be neither winners nor losers in the Cuban crisis.

In an effort to give an objective assessment of the events that preceded the emergence of the crisis, Bolshakov wrote: “Of course, it was no secret to anyone that in the summer of 1962 the Soviet Union and Cuba signed a military agreement on the supply of Soviet weapons to Cuba to strengthen its defense capability. The issue was discussed during Raul Castro's stay in Moscow in July 1962.

The Soviet Union sent the necessary military equipment and weapons to Cuba, including a certain number of medium-range missiles and the corresponding contingent of Soviet military specialists to assist and train Cuban military personnel. The missiles were serviced only by Soviet military specialists. This agreement was kept secret, although it was not difficult to assume that the shipment of bulky rocket launchers to Cuba by sea could not go unnoticed. After all, all approaches were controlled.

Further, Bolshakov named the root cause of the crisis. Here is his point of view: “As a matter of fact, passions raged not so much around the missiles themselves, but around our position of stubborn denial of the fact of their installation near American coasts. The Americans have long placed their missiles under our noses - in Turkey. But no one made a secret of this fact. The whole world knew about him, including the Soviet Union. But our deliberate secrecy fettered the actions of Soviet diplomacy, because, wherever and whenever the question of Cuba was raised, another one immediately arose: are there Soviet missiles in Cuba? The fact of direct negation was used unambiguously: a lie. And it crept into the minds of ordinary Americans very easily. That is probably why President Kennedy, before the planned invasion of Cuba, managed to enlist the support of not only the Organization of American States, but also a number of governments of European states - Great Britain, Germany, France.

American journalists, including his friend Frank Holman, wrote about Bolshakov's actions in Washington. Bolshakov was painfully worried about the unfair reproaches that were heard against him. These experiences are also reflected in the memories. Here is what he wrote about this: “Soviet diplomats, employees of the USSR embassy in Washington, also found themselves in a very unpleasant situation. The truth was concealed not only from “strangers”, but also from “our own”. We did not know how things really were, and the “no” with which we answered all the “rocket” questions was regarded accordingly. What was it like for the representative of the USSR to the UN in front of the whole world, surrounded by photographs of our launch sites, to play up and get out, moving away from a direct answer to the question about the presence of our missiles in Cuba. I am sad to think that in this matter I was considered a liar by both Robert Kennedy and other people who sincerely desired rapprochement with our country and who, like me, made great efforts to achieve this rapprochement.

Realizing that, by the will of fate, he turned out to be one of the main characters of the Caribbean crisis, Georgy Nikitovich wrote: “In fact, in the name of this idea (improving Soviet-American relations. - V.A.) a hotline was created and worked. The channel of personal communication between N. S. Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy was a new form of relations between the leaders of our two powerful states, in which the personal “I” dominated, excluding to a certain extent the influence of the forces opposing them (the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA and others) . He allowed the two leaders to express their views frankly on individual issues and thereby better understand each other.

Assessing the actions and capabilities of the leaders of the USSR and the USA on the eve and during the Caribbean crisis, Bolshakov wrote: “Kennedy and Khrushchev were a kind of“ captives ”of the power course of their predecessors. If the lesson of the failure of the adventure against Cuba in the Bay of Pigs led President Kennedy to a painful reassessment of his foreign policy course, then for the other side it became an excuse to increase their "confrontational pressure" (Vienna, Berlin, Cuba ...).

And only 13 tragic days in October 1962 had a sobering effect on the two leaders, who saw with their own eyes the abyss of a nuclear catastrophe, and they had the courage to start looking for mutual peaceful solutions to world problems. However, bullets in Dallas prevented one of them from continuing this path, and the “well-deserved rest” that began in October 1964 prevented the other. Thus, the opening opportunities for Soviet-American rapprochement were missed, precious time was lost.

Bolshakov made several erroneous assessments in his memoirs. One of them is that the failure in the Bay of Pigs led Kennedy to "a painful reassessment of his foreign policy."

As evidenced by the facts (investigation of the activities of the CIA by Senator Church's commission, declassified foreign intelligence reports of the KGB and the GRU), Kennedy, after the events in the Bay of Pigs, not only did not make a "torturous reassessment" of the foreign policy course, but also authorized the Mongoose operation, which was thwarted by joint actions of the leaders of the USSR and Cuba.

Bolshakov undoubtedly trusted Robert Kennedy, who skillfully kept state secrets and did not say a word to the editor of Soviet Life magazine about the preparations for the CIA operation against Cuba. R. Kennedy sought to find ways to solve the acute problems that held back the development of Soviet-American relations. But at the same time, it also created new, even more difficult difficulties on the path of rapprochement. The adventure against Cuba, if it had succeeded, would hardly have improved relations between the US and the USSR.

Readers will remember that on the pages of our book it has already been reported that Bolshakov was friends with military intelligence officer Viktor Lyubimov, who operated in Washington, Paris and other cities. Viktor Andreevich assessed Bolshakov's role in resolving the Caribbean crisis in the following way: “Georgy Bolshakov played an important positive role in stabilizing Soviet-American interstate relations. With all his appearance, behavior, goodwill, frankness and knowledge, he said that the country and the people who sent him to the USA cannot be an insidious aggressor.

Further, Lyubimov wrote: “I am convinced that partly under the influence of Georgy Bolshakov, Robert Kennedy and his close friends, who communicated with Bolshakov in their usual surroundings, took a sustained, realistic position in the process of resolving the Caribbean crisis. All of them stood for the blockade and negotiations, and not for the attack and invasion of Cuba.

Once upon a time, Viktor Andreevich Lyubimov gave the author of this book his unpublished memoirs about the Cuban Missile Crisis. They are also the “private opinion” of a person who lived and worked at that difficult time, when a military intelligence officer operated in Paris and supervised the work of an agent who had a secret pseudonym Murat in the GRU. What did captain 1st rank V.A. Lyubimov write about the Caribbean crisis? Let's take a look at his memoirs.

“I do not presume to evaluate the events on a large scale, however, in my opinion,” he wrote, “the assessments of political and military figures that sounded immediately after the events more clearly and truthfully reflected the reality of the situation at that time. I would like to use some words to reflect the participation of intelligence in general, and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, in particular, in the Berlin and Caribbean crises, in their occurrence and settlement. In order to understand the development of events, one should first of all turn to the events of May 1960, when U-2 reconnaissance flights organized by the CIA over the Soviet Union ended in the destruction of a US reconnaissance aircraft over Sverdlovsk.

But that was only the beginning. In May - June of the same year, the most valuable source of the GRU "Murat" handed over to us the "Nuclear strike plan" for the USSR and the countries of people's democracy, which is called "SACKERS Atomic Strike Plan No. 110/59 of November 16, 1959." In this plan, everything was described in exceptional detail: the scope and tasks, the principles of implementation, control and implementation, the goals and program of actions of the Supreme High Command of NATO and regional commands, ground and naval operations. At the same time, a new, top-secret NATO Instruction on the conduct of a nuclear war against the USSR, on the limits of action, was received from the source "Murat" ...

The head of the GRU reported these documents of particular importance to the Minister of Defense of the USSR R. Ya. Malinovsky and the Chief of the General Staff M. V. Zakharov, who could not fail to report these NATO documents to the Supreme Commander N. S. Khrushchev.

What a moral and purely physical shock the leader of the USSR experienced, should be described by eyewitnesses. But he was, this shock. Khrushchev's friend D. Eisenhower, a comrade-in-arms in the war against fascist Germany, brazenly and secretly, directly and quite seriously threatens our state and tells lies. Khrushchev's son, Sergei, writes about it this way: “In the heart of his father, the notches remained forever. The deceit on the part of the "friend" hit the father in the heart. He did not forgive President Eisenhower, nor the man Eisenhower." Negotiate peaceful life and simultaneously plan nuclear strikes. This, in my opinion, makes it clear where the roots of the Cuban Missile Crisis lie. I believe that it was the US and NATO that literally led the USSR to take a retaliatory step - the deployment of missiles in Cuba" 271 .

The opinion of retired KGB lieutenant general Nikolai Leonov, who was a resident in Mexico during the Caribbean crisis, is also interesting. According to him, expressed in 2012 to the correspondent of the Spanish newspaper El Coggeo, Ignacio Ortega, the main result of the Caribbean crisis is “a small victory in political and moral terms. From that moment on, the United States recognized that the USSR was a powerful nuclear power.” According to the doctor of historical sciences N. Leonov, “Operation Mongoose, a secret program of propaganda, psychological warfare and sabotage against Cuba developed in the Kennedy administration, undertaken to remove the communists from power, became the prerequisite for the Caribbean crisis.

And further: "The US-initiated attempt by Cuban counter-revolutionary forces to land on Playa Giron (Gulf of Pigs) in April 1961 demonstrated that the USSR cannot defend Cuba without deploying Soviet military bases on the island." Leonov claims that the Soviet government received information from the KGB about an impending new US provocation against Cuba in April 1962. This information supplemented the data that had already been obtained by military intelligence. The reports of the Soviet intelligence services were correctly assessed by Khrushchev and his associates, who made the responsible decision to get ahead of events. And they did.

The Russian historian Alexander Fursenko, who in 1999, together with the American researcher Timothy Naftali, published the book The Infernal Game 272 , assessed the actions of the Soviet prime minister as follows: “Khrushchev took a risk by deciding to deploy missiles in Cuba. But, as follows from official documents, he was not going to use them, but simply wanted to force the American authorities to enter into a dialogue with Moscow on an equal footing.

The dialogue is done. Dialogue of equals. But it was a dangerous dialogue, which, nevertheless, had a significant impact on the development of relations between the USSR and the USA.

Recalling his activities as a KGB resident, Leonov wrote: “In the reports that I sent to the Soviet leadership from Mexico, I warned that the United States was ready to attack Cuba. The risk was huge, and conflict is quite possible. Nevertheless, I hoped that common sense would prevail and Cuba would be able to prevent a worldwide nuclear holocaust.”

In general, in most of the private opinions cited, their authors agree that the Caribbean crisis was provoked by the actions of the Kennedy administration. Describing the impending invasion of American troops into Cuba, US Secretary of Defense R. McNamara stated in 2002: “It was supposed to be a massive attack. On the first day, air strikes were planned, for which 1080 sorties were supposed to be carried out. Then an invasion operation was to follow, in which 80,000 people were planned to take part.

During the Caribbean crisis, R. McNamara took a cautious position. He listened to what the president was saying and, understanding him, did not propose solutions that could lead to an operation by the American armed forces against the Soviet contingent stationed in Cuba.

Events happen faster than people change. The tense and dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis raged for thirteen days. It arose unexpectedly, swept over the United States, Cuba and the Soviet Union, could have captured Europe and other regions, but subsided in November 1962. So Armageddon, that is, a general military clash between the two superpowers, which could really develop into a world nuclear war, was canceled.

After the successful resolution of the Caribbean crisis between Khrushchev and Kennedy, an understanding was established that could contribute to the positive development of Soviet-American relations. But in 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and in 1964, Khrushchev was stripped of his post as prime minister as a result of yet another Kremlin coup.

256 Khrushchev N. S. Time. People. Power: in 4 t. M., 1999.
257 Khrushchev N. S. Time. People. Power: in 4 t. M., 1999 // Yesin V.I. Strategic operation "Anadyr" How it was. M., 2000. S. 22.
258 Esin V.I. Strategic operation "Anadyr". How it was. M., 2000. S. 5
259 Yazov D.F. Caribbean Crisis. Forty years later. M., 2006. S. 371-372
260 Ibid.
261 Gareev M. A. The Caribbean crisis and the role of nuclear weapons in ensuring the security of Russia in modern conditions // Yesin V. I. Strategic operation "Anadyr". How it was. M., 2000. S. 252-254.
262 Dobrynin A.F. Purely confidential. M., 1996. S. 78.
263 Ibid.
264 Feklisov A.S. Caribbean nuclear missile crisis. Looking from Washington // Esin V. I. Strategic operation "Adadyr". How it was. M., 2000. S. 248.
265 Ibid.
266 Bolshakov G. Hotline // Novoye Vremya, 1989, No. 6. P. 39.
267 Ibid.
268 Ibid. S. 40.
269 Lyubimov V. A. On the Caribbean Crisis. Manuscript. P. 10. From the personal archive of the author.
270 Ibid. S. 11.
271 Ibid.
272 Fursenko A., Naftali T. Infernal game. M., 1999.
273 Yazov D.F. Caribbean Crisis. Forty years later. M., 2006. S. 279.

With the development of confrontation, the Cold War becomes a significant element of world politics, leads to the formation of military-political blocs (NATO and the Warsaw Pact) and requires the parties to participate in conflicts (the most striking examples are the Korean War, Vietnam, Afghanistan) and interfere in the development events in any part of the world (Cuban Revolution, Prague Spring, etc.).

More and more new countries were involved in the confrontation, on the territory of which the most modern military bases were created. They housed not only the latest weapons, but also preparations were made for a long confrontation. Despite the fact that the very term "cold war" did not seem to imply open confrontation, it could break out at any moment.

At the same time, the first decades of the Cold War (40-60s of the XX century) are considered as the most explosive phase of this conflict, after which there is a gradual decline in tension and the beginning of detente. The "borderline" here is the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

Having briefly clarified the terminology, let's move on to a brief review of the historiography of the Cold War.

In general, Soviet-American relations were in the spotlight immediately after the end of the Second World War, when the allied relations between the USSR and the USA (which, we recall, were partners in the anti-Hitler coalition), were replaced by a tough confrontation, which was called the Cold War. ".

In Soviet historiography, rather quickly, the point of view was established that one of the main tasks of the post-war US foreign policy was the desire to prevent socialist revolutions in Western Europe. Also, as a significant argument, the idea of the desire of the American ruling circles for world domination was actively pursued. At the same time, Soviet historians wrote about anti-communism as the driving force behind the formation of American foreign policy.

Soviet historiography of the 40s-60s of the 20th century was largely unified, representing a "monolith" of concepts and assessments. For many years, scientists in the USSR were busy searching for the "culprit" of the post-war confrontation and, as a rule, took "official positions" and accused the Americans and their Western European allies of unleashing the "cold war." It can also be noted that the main studies of this period appeared after the “Khrushchev thaw”. Before this period, the study of the issue was mainly limited to journalistic articles.

During the period of détente (70s of the 20th century), more flexible formulations of the description of the Cold War appeared in Soviet historiography, in particular, the idea of missed opportunities on both sides. The defining study of this time was the collective work "History of the Foreign Policy of the USSR" (under the editorship of A.A. Gromyko, 1975). As significant works of this time, one can cite the studies of B. Dmitriev,

In the 1980s (especially during the period of perestroika in the USSR), the frozen clichés and clichés of Soviet historical science gradually changed, largely as a result of academic discussions of the Cold War between Soviet and American historians. At conferences in Moscow (1986) and at Ohio University (1988) there was talk about the periods, events and problems of the Cold War. From an unequivocal and hard line towards a one-sided accusation of the "West", Soviet historians moved on to an analysis of mistakes and omissions on the part of the Soviet Union as well.

However, until the 1990s The study of the Cold War in the Soviet Union was nevertheless hampered, first of all by the factors that the Cold War itself was still going on, and secondly, by the still high role of the CPSU in all, without exception, spheres of life of the Soviet state.

In general, the main leitmotif of Soviet studies of that phase of the Cold War that took place in the 40s - 60s of the XX century - the responsibility for unleashing the "cold war" lies with the United States, and the main driving force of the whole process was anti-communism, inherent in external and US domestic politics. The categorical nature of these assessments changed somewhat under the influence of the current policy of the party and government, but their direction did not actually change.

In the early 1990s In Russian historiography, there has been a move away from unilateral accusations of the United States of unleashing the Cold War, and the idea of mutual responsibility of the United States and the USSR for this confrontation began to assert itself more and more (at the same time, articles even appeared in which the USSR was given the main responsibility for the course of events) . In the same period, the source base of the issue was actively transformed, collections of documents were published. As a significant event in the Russian historiography of the 1990s, one can consider the formation of a “group for the study of the Cold War” on the basis of the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Director and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. O. Chubaryan, M. M. Narinsky, N. (I. Egorova, A. M. Filitov, V. L. Malkov, I. V. Gaiduk, M. L. Korobochkin, V. V. Pozdnyakov).

At the turn of the 20th - 21st centuries, the opportunities for Russian historians to collaborate with colleagues in the United States, Western and Central Europe expanded. This cooperation was carried out on an individual, bilateral basis, as well as within the framework of international projects, primarily the project on the study of the international history of the Cold War at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington. Regular contacts with foreign colleagues contributed to the rapid expansion of the international horizons of Russian Cold War specialists.

In modern Russian studies, there are different points of view on the problem of the emergence and course of confrontation between the USA and the USSR, but there are still few monographic publications on this issue. In general, the modern Russian historiography of the problem is characterized by a political, journalistic and ideological background, on the basis of which, often, the main approaches to this issue are formed.

The main leitmotif of modern Russian research is the idea of the mutual responsibility of the United States and the USSR for unleashing the Cold War, the tendency to study individual moments of confrontation, identifying the causes of the most critical moments of the Cold War (Korean War, Caribbean crisis).

Let's move on to the foreign historiography of the issue under consideration. Here, paradoxically, one can see some of the same trends that we saw in the analysis of Soviet and Russian historiography. This is most clearly manifested in the assessments of foreign scientists chronologically coinciding with the Cold War period itself. We mean that until the beginning of the 80s in Western historiography, the Cold War was considered as the result of the "expansion of world communism", as the desire of the West to resist communist aggression (N. Werth's concept can be cited as an example). Emotions go away with the end of the active phase of the global confrontation, and more balanced assessments appear in the scientific community.

In modern foreign historiography, the idea can be traced that, since both the USSR and the USA directed their efforts to folding systems of military-political alliances, it is impossible to identify the initiator of the formation of military-bloc systems. A number of historians derive the Cold War from the ideological and political views that prevailed on both sides.

Thus, we have examined the main trends that are inherent in the modern historiography of the Cold War. Let us formulate the main conclusions to which we have come:

Much attention is paid to the Cold War both in foreign and in Soviet and then Russian historiography of the Cold War. Considerable literature is devoted to this issue, and the Cold War itself is considered as one of the most significant moments in modern history;

The main leitmotif of Soviet studies of that phase of the Cold War that took place in the 40s-60s of the XX century is that the responsibility for unleashing the "cold war" lies with the United States, and the main driving force of the whole process was the anti-communism inherent in US foreign and domestic policy. . The categorical nature of these assessments changed somewhat under the influence of the current policy of the party and government, but their direction did not actually change;

In the foreign historiography of the issue until the early 80s of the XX century, the Cold War was considered as the result of the "expansion of world communism", as the desire of the West to resist communist aggression;

In modern foreign historiography, the idea can be traced that, since both the USSR and the USA directed their efforts to folding systems of military-political alliances, it is impossible to identify the initiator of the formation of military-bloc systems. A number of historians derive the consequences of the Cold War from the ideological and political views prevailing on both sides;

Thus, both in domestic and foreign historiography, despite partly different approaches to the very essence of phenomena, it is noted that the first decades of the Cold War (40s - 60s of the XX century) are considered as its most explosive phase. The peak of the "cold war" is considered to be the Caribbean crisis, the main approaches to the study of which we will consider in the following presentation.

So, in the previous presentation, we examined historiographic approaches to the study of the Cold War. One of the significant conclusions of this presentation was the position that the peak of the global confrontation between the two superpowers is considered to be the "Caribbean crisis" of 1962. Let us analyze the main approaches to the causes of this crisis in modern historiography.

So, before a direct analysis of approaches to the causes of the Caribbean crisis, it seems necessary to single out these causes themselves. For this, it is necessary to turn to historical facts. Let's start directly from the place of escalation of tension - Cuba.

So, Cuba, since the time of the Spanish-American war (1898) was considered as a zone of US interests. Between the pro-American government of Cuba and the United States, a number of agreements were concluded that actually put the island state under the full economic and political control of the United States. This situation was strengthened in 1952, when the pro-American dictatorship of F. Batista (1901-1973) was established in Cuba. The island is beginning to be seen as a profitable object for American investment, a place of recreation and entertainment for Americans. It was the largest US naval base (Guantanamo, to this day).

In 1956, the partisan "Movement of July 26" unfolded in the country under the leadership of Democrat F. Castro, which led to the fall in January 1959 of the dictatorial regime. A month later, an agrarian reform law was passed in Cuba, which eliminated local latifundia and large foreign landholdings, the land was transferred to the peasants, 70% of whom were landless. It was from this time that the deterioration of US relations with Cuba began.

On March 17, 1960, US President D. Eisenhower gave a secret directive on the preparation of detachments of Cuban emigrants for the invasion of the island, but in April 1961 the landing force was defeated. It should be noted that the United States during these events, which lasted three days, observed neutrality. At the same time, it was then that F. Castro announced the socialist choice, and Cuban-American relations turned into hostile ones.

In 1960, the first meeting between Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro took place, and as a result, the leadership of the Soviet Union made a strong-willed decision to support Cuba in its confrontation with the United States. It can be considered that Cuba was the first country to choose the communist path without significant military or political interference from the USSR. In this capacity, she was deeply symbolic for the Soviet leaders, especially for N.S. Khrushchev - he considered the defense of the island critical for the international reputation of the USSR and communist ideology.

In November 1961 The American administration considered the Mongoose Plan, the purpose of which was to assist the Cuban counter-revolution. The plan provided for economic sabotage, explosions of ports and oil storage facilities, arson of sugar cane plantations, and the assassination of F. Castro. In January 1962, the Department of Defense finalized a plan for the use of American forces in the event that the Cuban underground appealed to the United States after the outbreak of an uprising on the island. At the same time, at the initiative of the United States, Cuba was expelled from the Organization of American States (OAS) under the pretext of the threat of "communist penetration" into the countries of Latin America. 15 Latin American states severed diplomatic relations with her and established a trade embargo.

In general, these events preceded the so-called active phase of the Caribbean crisis, which is usually chronologically limited to 1962. We will consider the events of this year in more detail in our further presentation, and now we will consider other significant events in world politics, which are also most directly related to the topic of our presentation.

So, by the beginning of the 60s, two military-political blocs had formed in the world, which opposed each other. We are talking about NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

In general, the priority of the foreign policy of the USSR at that time was the desire to organize socialist revolutions in different parts of the world. Note that this had some success, however, in the Latin American region, the USSR did not have reliable allies at the beginning of the 60s of the twentieth century.

The situation with the presence of American missiles in Cuba was at least threatening for the Soviet Union, whose atomic potential at that time was much inferior to the American one (the United States had 6,000 warheads, the USSR had about 300).

The deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba in 1962 is generally considered a response to the deployment of US missiles in Turkey. That is, in this way, the Soviet Union sought to maintain parity of forces.

However, the causes of the Caribbean crisis are not limited to this enumeration. The researchers emphasize that this is a whole tangle of problems: US-Cuban, Soviet-Cuban, Soviet-American relations, the space race, and so on.

Thus, we briefly reviewed the prehistory of the Caribbean Crisis. Let us now get acquainted with the main historiographic approaches to these causes, also dividing the approaches within the framework of domestic and foreign historiography.

In the beginning, let us indicate that for a long time, the designated topic was overly politicized, and the main approaches to its study were formed in the light of the Cold War opportunistic considerations. However, let's look at these trends in more detail.

Before considering modern approaches of Russian historiography, we note that in Soviet historiography, up to the 80s, references to the Caribbean crisis were veiled and implicit. In this context, it is necessary to mention the memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev, which for a long time were the only more or less complete study of the causes of the Caribbean crisis, which were given special value by the fact that their author was one of the main characters of those times.

In the memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev was a significant phrase, which, in many respects, marked the beginning of modern approaches to the topic of the "Caribbean crisis". Let's bring her. Nikita Sergeevich wrote literally the following:

“These were very interesting, very revealing events, because here the two largest countries sort of clashed head-on. It seemed that a military denouement was inevitable. And we have already launched our combat assets, and the United States surrounded the island with warships, concentrated infantry and aviation. But we have shown that if we are guided by reasonable goals and the desire to prevent war, if we resolve disputed issues by means of a compromise, then such a compromise can be found. Mind won."

In general, the memoirs of N.S. Khrushchev are also interesting as a historical source, in which for the first time many facts were cited, on which future researchers focused their attention.

However, back to our review.

In the 80s - 90s of the last century, scientists accumulated material, analyzed the available sources, and in the early 2000s, finally, some basic approaches to the causes of the Caribbean crisis were formed.

In 2006, a monographic edition by S.A. Mikoyan (Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis), to the analysis of which we will repeatedly turn. This book examines in detail the causes, course and consequences of the Caribbean crisis, and so far this is the most complete study in modern Russian historiography, so we will consider it in more detail.

This book is distinguished by a rare breadth of coverage of problems related to the most acute conflict of the second half of the twentieth century. The appendices, documents from domestic and foreign archives, many of which are published for the first time, attach particular value to the monograph.

Important in the context we are studying are also the works of S. Khrushchev (son of N.S. Khrushchev), in which the causes and consequences of the actions of the Soviet leadership of that time are analyzed, and attempts are made to form a holistic picture of the causes and course of the Caribbean crisis.

In addition, in the 2000s, within the framework of the already mentioned group for the study of the Cold War, created at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, separate scientific articles were published in which, from a number of positions, the causes of the Caribbean crisis are considered.

If we reduce the opinions of modern Russian scientists on the causes of the Caribbean crisis to some resultant, then we get the following:

Studying the causes of the Caribbean crisis is impossible outside the context of the global confrontation between the two superpowers of that time (cold war);

The causes of the Caribbean crisis can be divided into several components;

The main reason was the Soviet-American nuclear confrontation and the lack of power parity among the superpowers (i.e. the US was in a better geopolitical position in terms of having strong allies and the fact that America had more atomic warheads);

Concomitant reasons - the space race (the successes of the USSR in this area were more impressive and the American government was afraid of deepening the gap in this area, we also note that the space programs of that time were also military-oriented);

Until the beginning of the 60s, the USSR had no reliable allies in Latin America (Cuba in this context was a necessary springboard for the USSR, close to the United States, from which it was possible, on the one hand, to spread socialist ideas to other countries of Latin America, and on the other hand, to have a base for Soviet warheads in close proximity to the United States); the location of American missiles in Turkey (that is, in the immediate vicinity of the USSR).

As an integral part of the history of the Caribbean crisis and its causes, the personalities and relationships of N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy are considered,

Let's move on to the foreign historiography of the causes of the Caribbean crisis.

Here it must be admitted that the history of the study of the problem under study in the West is more impressive than in the Soviet Union and Russia. American scientists - historians, political scientists, sociologists and even culturologists began to turn to this topic immediately after the end of the crisis - in the mid-60s of the XX century. We note here the interesting works of G. Allison, G. Dinnerstein, D. Detzer and others. The context of these works is, first of all, the actual presentation of the material, and secondly, calls for the prevention of such crises in the future (we also note that the number of such works only increases during periods of detente and perestroika).

In the 80s - 90s, the process of studying the Caribbean crisis in foreign historiography continues. We also note that a slightly different point of view on the causes of the Caribbean crisis is widespread in Western historiography.

G. Kissinger formulated it in his monograph Diplomacy. Within the framework of this concept, the Caribbean crisis is considered as a component of the so-called. The Berlin crisis of 1958-1963, which was caused by the division of Berlin into two parts and the events that took place as a result of this.

In the 90s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, foreign science began to show a tendency to rethink the causes of the Caribbean crisis - so in a number of works, opinions appear, in general, similar to the opinions of Russian scientists. We are talking about the fact that the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was just an asymmetric response to US actions in Turkey.

In conclusion, we note the monograph “Infernal game. The Secret History of the Cuban Missile Crisis 1958-1964 , the publication of which was the result of the work of Russian and American specialists - A. Fursenko and T. Naftali.

In this work, based on the analysis of a huge number of documents, those processes are shown within the framework of the international situation in the early sixties of the XX century, which usually remained outside the scope of the study of scientists.

First of all, these are unknown facts of the relationship between the three leaders - F. Castro, N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy, as well as some aspects of world politics that were usually considered outside the context of the Caribbean crisis - the situation in Brazil, internal problems in the United States. We also note that this book also shows a direct relationship between the Berlin events and the events on the "island of freedom".

This work, together with the mentioned monograph by S. Mikoyan, can be considered as the most complete study of the causes of the Caribbean crisis in domestic and foreign historiography at the beginning of the 21st century.

Thus, we formulate a number of general conclusions for this chapter:

The main trend of modern Russian studies of the Cold War issues is the idea of the mutual responsibility of the USA and the USSR for unleashing a global confrontation.

Modern foreign historiography traces the idea that, since both the USSR and the USA directed their efforts towards the formation of systems of military-political alliances, it is impossible to identify the initiator of the formation of military-bloc systems.

The Caribbean Crisis is considered the peak of the Cold War, both in foreign and domestic;

The causes of the Caribbean crisis are very diverse and are expressed by a whole range of relations between the US and the USSR, as well as their allies. The main approaches to studying the causes of the Caribbean crisis are somewhat different within the framework of domestic and foreign historical schools.

The main leitmotif of modern Russian research is that although both superpowers were guilty of the Caribbean crisis, the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was just an asymmetric response to US actions in Turkey;

The personalities and relationships of N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy are considered as an integral part of the history of the Caribbean crisis and its causes.

The main trends in foreign study of the causes of the Caribbean crisis can be formulated as follows:

The Caribbean crisis is considered as a component of the so-called. the Berlin Crisis of 1958-1963;

There are opinions that the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was just an asymmetric response to US actions in Turkey;

There are separate, successful moments of cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, for example, the work "Infernal Game", which indicate that when studying the causes of the Caribbean crisis, the most successful is an integrated approach, in which the opinions of all actors are studied.

§2.1 Development and aggravation of the crisis: modern research

So, having studied modern approaches to the prerequisites of the Caribbean crisis, let's move on to studying the modern vision of the active phase of the Caribbean crisis, namely, the processes of its development and aggravation. In the context of this task, it seems to us to give a brief historical overview of these events.

In the previous presentation, we found out that by the beginning of the 60s, two military-political blocs had formed in the world that opposed each other - NATO and the Warsaw Pact Organization.

At that moment, the priority of forces in geopolitics belonged to the United States, which was supported by most of the developed countries of Western Europe, South Africa, Australia, Canada, Turkey, as well as regions dependent on the American economy - some Asian countries and most Latin American countries.

The positions of the USSR, in turn, were strong in Eastern Europe and Asia. In addition, the Soviet leadership, primarily economically, on a practically gratuitous basis, helped the poorest countries in Asia and Africa, supported the national liberation struggle in the colonies on the political map of the world at that time. In general, the priority of the foreign policy of the USSR at that time was the desire to organize socialist revolutions in different parts of the world.

The immediate cause of the Cuban Missile Crisis is usually identified as the presence of US nuclear arsenals in Turkey - that is, within reach of the most economically developed regions of the Soviet Union, as well as cities such as Kyiv, Moscow, Minsk, Tbilisi, Baku and Yerevan.

Deployment of nuclear warheads in Turkey began in 1961. The deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba began in 1962, a fact that is generally considered a response to the deployment of US missiles in Turkey. That is, in this way, the Soviet Union sought to maintain parity of forces. However, the causes of the Caribbean crisis are not limited to this enumeration. The researchers emphasize that this is a whole tangle of problems: US-Cuban, Soviet-Cuban, Soviet-American relations, the space race, and so on.

Agreements between the governments of Cuba and the USSR on the transfer of Soviet armed formations and medium-range missiles to the island of "Freedom". In general, they were concluded in April-July 1962. At the same time, the so-called operation "Anadyr" began, which provided for the transfer of R-12 missiles to Cuba, under the "guard" of the 50,000-strong Soviet military contingent.

The American government officially (there are different opinions on this matter, which we will discuss below) did not notice the Soviet presence on the island until September 5, when US President D. Kennedy issued a warning statement listing 5 changes in the status quo in Cuba that would be seen by the US government as a threat to vital US interests.

“The most serious problems will arise if evidence of the presence of Soviet military formations in Cuba, Soviet military bases on the island, violation of the US-Cuban treaty of 1934 guaranteeing American control of Guantanamo, the presence of offensive surface-to-surface missiles, as well as other significant offensive potential. According to the President, such a statement was quite sufficient, but further developments showed that this opinion was erroneous.

As such, the crisis began on October 14, 1962, when a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft spotted Soviet-made missiles in Cuba. It should be noted that although the US leadership kept track of the “special” relations between Cuba and the USSR, the fact of the nuclear basing of the Soviet Union in the reach of most of the US territory produced the effect of an “exploding bomb”.

The nuclear strategy of the United States provided for a policy of the so-called "flexible response", according to which the primary defense against possible aggression of the Soviet Union by the US allies in NATO and only within Europe or Asia - regions that were geographically removed from the territory of the United States. The deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba threatened more than half of the population and territory of the United States, that is, in fact, brought the nuclear threat directly to the US borders.

By decision of US President John F. Kennedy, a special Executive Committee was created to discuss possible solutions to the problem. For some time, the meetings of the executive committee were secret, but on October 22, Kennedy addressed the people, announcing the presence of Soviet "offensive weapons" in Cuba, which immediately began to panic in the United States. A "quarantine" (blockade) of Cuba was introduced by the US Navy.

At the same time, active diplomatic consultations begin. Certain accusations are brought against the Soviet government. This happens first at the level of embassies, then at the level of interstate organizations - primarily the UN.

The Soviet side at the beginning denied the very fact of the presence of its own atomic weapons in Cuba, but then admitted this fact, stating that these measures were dictated by "deterrent motives", meaning that the missiles in Cuba were an adequate response to the presence of American missiles in the Black Sea basin , in Turkey. Such rhetoric did little to reduce panic in the American state and society, and the leadership of the United States is beginning to prepare measures for an "adequate response."

On October 25, 1962, evidence of the Soviet military presence in Cuba was shown to members of the UN Security Council. However, diplomatic measures at the UN level did not bring effective (for the Americans) results.

Reconnaissance flights over Cuba intensified and showed that several missiles were already installed and ready for launch. According to American experts, the class of missiles installed in Cuba (namely, the R-12) allowed them to have within reach such large American cities as New York, Washington and Chicago.

The further actions of the leaders of the USSR and the USA were no longer aimed at escalating the conflict, but at feverish attempts to find a mutually satisfying way out of the current situation. We will consider them in the next presentation.

These are the facts, let us now consider the main approaches to their interpretation, which are characteristic of the modern historiography of the issue.

The main questions reflected in modern scientific literature regarding the period of development and exacerbation of the Caribbean crisis can be divided into several groups:

A set of issues related to the transfer of Soviet armed forces to Cuba;

Description of the reaction of the Soviet leadership, which understood that the actions aimed at ensuring the secrecy of the Anadyr operation were temporary and that the Americans would in any case learn about the Soviet atomic presence on their borders;

Studying the position and reaction of the American side after the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba;

Studying issues related to the escalation of the conflict in the second half of October 1962: identifying the international reaction, understanding the position of the USA and the USSR.

Let's consider these groups in more detail.

The first of them is related to the secret transfer of Soviet missiles to Cuba. In historiography, it is solved in different ways.

A number of researchers of the problem are of the opinion that the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating Soviet missile bases in Cuba arose in March-April 1962. The American expert R. Garthoff, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences A. Fursenko, Professor D. Volkogonov and others call April when the Minister of Defense of the USSR R. Malinovsky reported to N. Khrushchev on the deployment of American medium-range nuclear missiles in Turkey.

Sergo Mikoyan, in his Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis, emphasizes that the transfer of Soviet troops to Cuba (more than 50 thousand people) began in July and lasted 2.5 months, during which time 85 ships made 243 flights. The details of the operation were discussed during the July visit of R. Castro (brother of the Cuban leader) to Moscow and his personal meeting with Khrushchev.

We also note that the fact that the transfer of a significant Soviet military contingent was discovered by the Americans only "after the fact" - after the active phase of the operation in July-September 1962 was completed.

A wide variety of theories on this matter have appeared in the journalistic literature of recent years - from the deliberate waiting on the part of the American military forces, which, for their part, were interested in the conflict, to opinions that imply that the inaction on the part of US intelligence was caused by both unprecedented security measures and secrecy on the part of the Soviet Union, as well as the overly self-confident position of the Americans themselves, who were sure that the Soviet Union did not have the resources to conduct such global operations.

It seems to us that the position of Sergo Mikoyan, who wrote in particular the following, is more justified: “Khrushchev could not force John F. Kennedy to stop U-2 flights over Cuba; but he could get him to stop using reconnaissance aircraft overflying Soviet ships to photograph cargo bound for Cuba. Describing American aerial reconnaissance in international waters as "intimidation," the Soviet government in July 1962 sent a request through Bolshakov to stop these flights in the name of improving relations between the two countries. As a result, the American president "frozen" reconnaissance flights over Cuban territory in exchange for some political concessions in West Berlin.

One way or another, by September 1962, the operation of transferring Soviet troops to Cuba (called "Anadyr") was generally completed, and the process of installing Soviet rocket launchers began.

Regarding this period, modern researchers have a number of questions related to the reaction of the Soviet leadership, which clearly understood that the actions aimed at ensuring the secrecy of the Anadyr operation were temporary and that the Americans would in any case learn about the Soviet atomic presence at their borders.

Sergo Mikoyan, for example, emphasizes that "paradoxical as it may seem, but the realization that the Americans will soon be able to detect the missile operation did not cause serious alarm in the Kremlin." Developing his thought, the scientist, relying on the direct evidence of the participants in those events, writes that “in the eyes of the Russians, the Jupiters near the Soviet border justified the missiles in Cuba. Before the court of international public opinion, there was no distinction between American missiles in Turkey, aimed at Moscow, and Soviet missiles, aimed at Washington from Cuba. The Kremlin considered it quite likely that Kennedy might think the same way.

The authors of the book The Atomic Game we have already mentioned, in turn, believe that “among the Soviet leadership, the opinion was becoming more and more strengthened that even if the United States found out about the missiles before they were put on alert, the Anadyr operation would be successfully completed, since John Kennedy will have to come to terms with what he finds in Cuba. Additional information from confidential sources in the United States reinforced the image of the American president as a man more concerned about Berlin and congressional elections, who was not going to reopen the discussion in his own government on the use of military force in Cuba.

In general, with respect to the period immediately preceding the active phase of the Caribbean Crisis, modern researchers

The third group of issues that is reflected in modern research is the study of the position and reaction of the American side immediately before and after the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba, that is, in the period of August - October 1962.

According to the opinion established in the scientific literature, until mid-October 1962, the Americans did not suspect or did not attach much importance to the facts of the Soviet military presence in Cuba.

This state of affairs finds its solution in the pages of The Infernal Game. Its authors emphasize that there is a huge amount of evidence that American intelligence and the armed forces had more or less accurate information about the nature and scope of Operation Anadyr. However, the response was largely hampered by the position of the President of the United States - D. Kennedy.

This politician believed that his personal relationship with N. Khrushchev could to some extent prevent the escalation of the conflict. In addition, we emphasize once again that the Americans believed that the Soviet Union did not have the forces and resources for an open military confrontation with them. The statement of the American President of September 5, 1962, already mentioned by us, according to modern research, is a kind of warning to N. Khrushchev, aimed at ensuring that the Soviet leadership does not take “rash steps”.

When D. Kennedy's warning was violated, and the Americans received irrefutable facts of this, the active phase of the crisis began. It happened on October 13, 1962. A U-2 reconnaissance aircraft spotted two nuclear missiles and six nuclear-weapon transports southwest of Havana. This completely disproved all the assurances of the Soviet Union about its defensive tactics in the Caribbean. Modern researchers unanimously regard the first reaction of the American administration to the received data as a shock. One of the first decisions of D. Kennedy is aimed at preventing the penetration of the obtained data into the press. The next decision is to create an Executive Committee on the issue.

The study "Infernal Game" describes in detail the mechanism for the formation of the said executive committee and the nature of its meetings. At a meeting of the executive committee on October 16, 1962, four options for solving the current situation were formulated:

“The first is an air strike that will sweep away all known missile ranges at once, the second is a “global air strike” against MIG-21 fighters and all SA-2 installations, the third is an invasion of Cuba, which is possible only after 2 days of preparation, and the fourth - blockade of the island in the hope of preventing the delivery of nuclear warheads and new missiles to Cuba.

At the same time, A. Fursenko and T. Naftali emphasize Kennedy's opinion that "None of the non-violent options will force Khrushchev to remove missiles from Cuba."

In the studies of S. Mikoyan and A. Fursenko, the atmosphere in the administration of the American president on October 16-22, 1962 is described in detail.

These days, intensive consultations are taking place between various military departments, and the US President is meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister A. Gromyko. On October 20, a decision is made to inform the American public about a possible conflict. The decisive factor in this decision is the message of CIA analysts that "even today eight medium-range missiles can be launched from Cuba." On October 21, consultations with the British Government take place, and on October 22, Kennedy addresses the American people.

Both American and modern Russian historiography admit that D. Kennedy wanted to prevent a military solution to the issue until the very end. As a fact confirming this, Kennedy's phrase, which he uttered on the eve of his address to the nation, "I never thought that I would live to see the time when I want to fight" is usually cited.

Let us turn to the study of issues related to the escalation of the conflict in the second half of October 1962. The main research here is aimed at identifying the international reaction to the events described, at understanding the position of the USA and the USSR.

The world learned about a possible conflict on October 22, 1962, after D. Kennedy's address to the nation. It should be noted that the nature of the appeal was not unconditionally "offensive". On the contrary, the President called "to stop the secret reckless and provocative policy of threats to peace and stability of relations between our countries." At the same time, the President reported that a "sea blockade" was being organized around Cuba.

The reaction of the Soviet Union was quite aggressive. If until October 22 the official bodies of the USSR did not generally acknowledge the presence of missiles in Cuba, then after the Kremlin gives instructions to bring all the forces of the Warsaw Pact to a state of combat readiness. The USSR Embassy in Washington received an order to prepare for a possible war and destroyed documents, and the Cuban government began a total mobilization.

The further actions of the two countries resembled a "snowball", which was bound to inevitably lead to war, the formal reason for which could be anything. At the same time, we note that researchers also note constructive trends in the positions of the two world leaders. For example, in The Infernal Game, Khrushchev mentions this phrase, which he said during personal negotiations with William E. Knox, president of the Westinghouse company, who happened to be in Moscow on a business visit. Khrushchev used the businessman to convey his position: “The main the task now is to avoid war, and I suggest that Kennedy meet in the USA, Russia or any neutral country. But if the USA insists on war, then we will all meet in hell.

Thus, the positions of modern researchers regarding the development and aggravation of the crisis, in general, can be reduced to the following results:

A certain place in the modern historiography of the issue is occupied by the description of the reaction of the Soviet leadership, which understood that the actions aimed at ensuring the secrecy of the Anadyr operation were temporary and that the Americans would in any case learn about the Soviet atomic presence at their borders. The researchers generally point out that among the Soviet leadership in 1962, the opinion was growing stronger that even if the United States learned about the missiles before they were put on alert, the Anadyr operation would be successfully completed, since John F. Kennedy would have to come to terms with the fact that he discovers in Cuba;

Thus, the period of development and exacerbation of the Caribbean crisis has found a worthy reflection in modern historiography. It can be noted that in recent years, based on the analysis of a huge number of sources, researchers have made largely successful attempts to draw a complete picture of the events immediately preceding the resolution of the Caribbean crisis.

In the following presentation, we will dwell in more detail on modern approaches to the study of the complex of causes that ultimately led to the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the current situation.

§2.2 Resolution of the Caribbean crisis: a vision in the 21st century

Let's move on to the modern vision of the complex of causes and conditions that made possible the peaceful resolution of the conflict. At the beginning, as in the previous parts of our work, let's turn to the actual material.

At 10 am on October 25, Washington time, Soviet intelligence intercepted an order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to Air Force Strategic Command to prepare for a nuclear attack. The phase of the Caribbean crisis has entered its apogee.

On the same day, at a UN meeting, the Americans openly made a statement about the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. On the same day, for the first and only time, American troops were put on DEFCON-2 combat readiness, which meant the maximum combat readiness of all units, on the eve of a large-scale conflict, with the possibility of using weapons of mass destruction.

Also on October 25, N. Khrushchev receives a message from President Kennedy, which states that "the Soviet side broke its promises regarding Cuba and misled him." Any further diplomatic skirmishes could only lead to one thing - to a large-scale attack on Cuba. In brackets, we note that, according to recently published data, the command of the military contingent in Cuba had the right to use nuclear weapons without the consent of the Kremlin, in the event of an American attack.

An urgent meeting of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet is held in Moscow, at which N. Khrushchev announces that "it is impossible to store missiles in Cuba without going to war with the United States." The result of this meeting was the development of a position that would dismantle the missiles in Cuba in exchange for additional US guarantees regarding the preservation of the existing political order on the "island of freedom". This position was stated in N. Khrushchev's personal message to the President of the United States. October 26, 1962.

These days, the exchange of views went through many diplomatic and intelligence channels - from the Brazilian Embassy in Cuba, through which the US position was brought to the attention of F. Castro, to the secret meeting of an ABC reporter with Soviet intelligence officer Alexander Fomin. However, no final agreements were made.

On October 27, an event occurs that could become a pretext for an atomic war. The Soviet anti-aircraft missile division shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which was patrolling the waters of Cuba. Almost simultaneously with this event, another reconnaissance aircraft was shot down, but already directly over the territory of the USSR.

The US military command, in response to the downed planes, in many respects in the form of an ultimatum, demanded that Kennedy give the order to invade Cuba. October 27 is sometimes referred to as Black Saturday. It is recognized that on this day the world was closest to a global nuclear war.

On the night of October 27-28, the brother of the President of the United States, Robert Kennedy, met with the Soviet ambassador in Washington and informed him that the situation was threatening to get out of control.

The next morning, the Kremlin received a message from Kennedy, which stated:

“1) You agree to withdraw your weapons systems from Cuba under the appropriate supervision of UN representatives, and to take steps, subject to appropriate security measures, to stop the supply of such weapons systems to Cuba.

2) We, for our part, agree - subject to the creation with the help of the UN of a system of adequate measures to ensure the fulfillment of these obligations -

a) promptly lift the blockade measures currently in place and

b) give guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba. I am sure that other states of the Western Hemisphere will be ready to do the same.”

Nikita Khrushchev, in response to this message from the President of the United States, sends him a letter in which he informs him of his acceptance of America's conditions.

The dismantling of the Soviet warheads took three weeks, during which time Cuba had an order prohibiting the use of anti-aircraft weapons against American aircraft. On November 20, 1962, Soviet missiles were completely eliminated from Cuba. Shortly thereafter, the superpowers instructed their UN representatives to finalize the settlement of the crisis.

A few months later, American missiles are being dismantled in Turkey. This was not a direct response to the actions of the Soviet Union - the missiles were replaced as obsolete, but such a decision by the United States was implied by the very spirit of the agreements reached between N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy.

At the same time, we emphasize that the dismantling was carried out under the "sign of modernization", and the missiles were officially recognized as "obsolete".

Thus, the acute phase of the crisis was successfully passed. Now let's turn to the modern vision of the described events.

We note right away that in modern studies of the issue, one can see several directions for studying the causes and conditions that made it possible to resolve the crisis, these are:

Personal role of N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy;

The role of informal contacts between Soviet and American intelligence.

In addition, the position of Cuban leaders is usually singled out as a separate aspect of the problem being studied.

Let's take a closer look at these areas.

Basically, the researchers emphasize that both Nikita Khrushchev and D. Kennedy showed themselves in this critical situation as genuine "fathers of their nation." Modern studies note that both in the United States and the USSR there were quite a few supporters of a forceful solution to the conflict. There were especially many of them in the military departments.

From the point of view of the Soviet leadership, there was still some pressure from the Cuban leaders, who were determined to resolve the conflict with the United States by military means, without particularly going into the capabilities of the parties and the balance of their forces.

Researchers (S. Mikoyan and others) also pay attention to the ambiguous role of N. Khrushchev:

- on the one hand, this Soviet leader largely contributed to the peaceful resolution of the current situation (the work of S. Khrushchev);

On the other hand, he was the direct culprit of this conflict (he misinterpreted the situation, that is, in his eyes, as we noted above, American missiles near the Soviet border justified missiles in Cuba) (works by S. Mikoyan, monograph "Infernal Game");

Researchers also emphasize the high role of D. Kennedy, who until the last opportunity was looking for a peaceful way out of the current situation, while not exchanging the interests of the state.

In general, modern scientific literature notes the fact that N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy, better than others, understood the dangers of a military solution to the crisis, and that is why they made mutual concessions. Thus, their role in resolving the Caribbean crisis is undoubtedly high and of paramount importance.

Let's move on to another direction of modern research, it is connected, first of all, with the role of informal contacts between Soviet and American intelligence. In the 90s, a lot of non-fiction literature was published on intelligence relations during the civil war (including during the Caribbean crisis), some memoirs of the direct participants in the conflict were published (memoirs of Feklisov A.M., P. Sudoplatov and others).

However, in our opinion, the role of the intelligence services of the USSR and the USA was best revealed in the “Hell Game” that we have repeatedly mentioned. According to this study, it was the meeting of A. Feklisov with an American reporter and the transfer to the latter of the proposal of the Soviet side on the withdrawal of missile forces, in exchange for guarantees of the immunity of the Castro regime, that became the basis for future agreements at the highest level.

A certain place in the study of conflict resolution is occupied by the analysis of the position of the Cuban leadership.

Cuban leaders formulated in October 1962 the so-called "five demands of the Cuban people", the implementation of which was to ensure peace and security, as well as respect for the sovereign rights of the republic:

An end to the economic blockade and all the measures of economic pressure that the United States is carrying out against Cuba in different parts of the world;

The cessation of all types of subversive activities, including the introduction of spies and saboteurs with weapons to the island;

Cessation of pirate flights over Cuba from US military bases;

The departure of the Americans from the military base in Guantanamo;

The return of their occupied territory to Cuba.

Researchers have repeatedly emphasized the fact that Fidel Castro and the government of Cuba tried to provoke a conflict between the two superpowers.

This position was associated primarily with a sense of insecurity in their position. F. Castro seriously feared that the Soviet leadership, in the face of the threat of a global war, which was unprofitable primarily for the Soviet Union (due to the inequality of nuclear potentials), would sacrifice Cuba as a "bargaining chip".

In parentheses, we note that out of the “five requirements”, probably only one was fulfilled - the lifting of the economic blockade, and even then not completely. Thus, it can be argued that the doubts of the Cuban leaders turned out to be generally justified.

Thus, let us sum up some intermediate conclusions on this chapter. So:

The positions of modern researchers regarding the development and aggravation of the crisis, in general, can be summarized as follows:

Regarding the complex of issues related to the transfer of Soviet armed forces to Cuba, modern researchers (mainly authors of monographic publications) emphasize

First, the clandestine nature of the operation;

Secondly, the obvious underestimation on the part of the Americans of the very possibility of transferring Soviet armed forces and atomic missiles to Cuba;

The study of the position and reaction of the American side after the discovery of Soviet missiles in Cuba is also given quite a significant place. The main leitmotif of research on this issue is, on the one hand, a clearly shocking reaction to the fact of the discovery of missiles, and on the other, the position of US President D. Kennedy, who until the last moment wanted to prevent a military solution to the issue, is noted;

The study of issues related to the escalation of the conflict in the second half of October 1962 is mainly aimed at identifying the factual side of those numerous interstate consultations that took place in the second half of October 1962.

Issues related to the resolution of the crisis also turned out to be in the field of vision of modern researchers. Our main findings here are:

In addition, the position of Cuban leaders is usually singled out as a separate aspect of the problem being studied. Let's take a closer look at these areas.

Chapter III. The Historical Significance of the Caribbean Crisis: Modern Science Approaches

§3.1 Detention of international tension as a result of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis

Now, having familiarized ourselves with both the factual materials on the history and prehistory of the Caribbean crisis, and the main opinions of modern researchers, let's move on to studying a question no less important than all of the above. We mean the study of the main approaches of modern science to identifying the historical significance of the Caribbean crisis.

Before describing directly historiographical approaches, let us once again turn to the factual side of the issue.

So, the resolution of the "Caribbean Crisis" became a fait accompli in November 1962. Soviet missiles were dismantled and taken out, and a few months later, American missiles are being dismantled in Turkey. This was not a direct response to the actions of the Soviet Union - the missiles were replaced as obsolete, but such a decision by the United States was implied by the very spirit of the agreements reached between N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy.

However, such a decision did not satisfy everyone, and especially the Soviet Union.

In fact, in the eyes of the world community, a situation has developed in which the Soviet Union has "reversed" in resolving the situation that it itself created. The Cuban leadership regarded the move to withdraw nuclear missiles from the island as a betrayal. Some circles of the US military departments turned out to be dissatisfied, and they assessed the agreements reached as a "defeat of the United States." So, for example, the commander of the US Air Force, General LeMay, called the refusal to attack Cuba "the worst defeat in our history."

However, not all the consequences of the Caribbean crisis can be assessed as negative. One of the first positive decisions was an agreement to install a direct telephone line between Moscow and Washington. In addition, the so-called "detente" in world tension, which took place in subsequent years, is associated with the results of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis.

Let's dwell on it in more detail. By the second half of the 1960s, a fairly stable bipolar political system had developed in the world: the Eastern and Western blocs, led by the USSR and the USA, reached a strategic balance based on the doctrine of mutually assured destruction during a possible nuclear war.

Since the mid-1960s, the Soviet Union has generally been catching up with the United States in terms of atomic potential. The Caribbean crisis, for this process, was an "object lesson" of what could happen in an open military clash of the superpowers. The lessons of the Caribbean crisis began to be studied in many Western institutions of higher education, and the "anatomy" of the Caribbean crisis seemed to be a visual aid for preventing future conflicts.

Certain conclusions were also drawn in the USSR. First of all, they consisted in the removal in 1964 from all state and party posts of Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, whose decisions largely provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fact that he later took an active part in resolving the situation was not taken into account then.

After N. Khrushchev, L. I. Brezhnev came to power - a politician and statesman who was a more suitable candidate for establishing fundamentally new relations with the West.

In parentheses, we note that the assassination of Kennedy, which occurred shortly after the events described, is also associated by some researchers with the role of this person in resolving the crisis.

Let's get acquainted, now, with the main conclusions of modern researchers regarding the results of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis. It can be immediately noted that the views on this are very diverse.

Let's start from the position of foreign scientists. It is now recognized that the political prudence shown by J. Kennedy at the decisive stage of the outbreak of the crisis was positively assessed by the majority of Americans and the American media.

The colossal tension in which Americans lived, subjected for several weeks to an unabated onslaught of extremely chauvinistic and aggressive articles, radio and television reports, statements and interviews, began to gradually subside, giving way to a feeling of undisguised relief from the knowledge that they, and the whole world managed to avoid an irreparable catastrophe.

In general, the point of view prevailing in Western European historiography on the results and consequences of the Caribbean crisis can be found in the Italian historian Giuseppe Boff. He's writing:

“Khrushchev and Kennedy became the heroes of the most dramatic crisis that ever arose between the USSR and the USA ... it is estimated by Russian and American authors as the most difficult in all the post-war years.” Boffa also emphasizes that the reconstruction of the crisis and its details is based almost entirely on American sources.

One of the main conclusions of the Italian - "the whole world endured the impression of the defeat of the USSR." Boffa believes that "success gave rise to euphoria in the United States, which subsequently influenced the going to the end in the Vietnam War. However, this was a dangerous excitement, and Kennedy warned his employees against excessive enthusiasm."

At the same time, foreign historiography is characterized by the assumption that not only the United States learned the lessons from the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For the US and the USSR, nuclear war was an unacceptable means of continuing politics.

Whatever the difference in power, the Soviet Union and the United States had sufficient means to destroy each other or make illusory the hope of victory. Two powers could enter into sharp conflicts, but they were forced to coexist on the same planet. Therefore, it is not surprising that after the Cuban crisis, a dialogue between the two states began from new positions.

After the events of 1962, an understanding arose in the circles of the American administration of the need for steps aimed at easing tension in Soviet-American relations. President Kennedy was more and more inclined to similar conclusions. This shift in the approach of the American side to relations with the USSR contributed to a certain normalization of Soviet-American relations, starting in the spring of 1963.

In general, the question of what the United States "gained and lost" as a result of the outbreak and subsequent resolution of the crisis in the Caribbean Sea is still being debated in the Western press and studies on foreign relations. At the same time, attempts are often made to present the actions of the Kennedy government during this period as "forced", as well as to ascribe to the United States a certain "victory" over the Soviet Union.

At the same time, we emphasize that foreign historiography (primarily American) is characterized by the approach formulated by the American writer G. Alisson: “History knows no other periods similar to the 30 days of October 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union stopped at the edge of the nuclear abyss. Never before has there been such a high degree of probability that such a large number of lives will end unexpectedly.

Let's move on to domestic research on the issue.

Their main leitmotif is the position that the Caribbean crisis was a kind of watershed in relations between the two powers. These events clearly demonstrated that there is a more than probable danger of a nuclear clash between countries, showed that the most reasonable way to resolve disputes under the prevailing atomic parity is the path of negotiations.

Also, the following thoughts are characteristic of the domestic historiography of the issue:

The Caribbean crisis was resolved as a result of a compromise acceptable to both sides;

Kennedy government:

A) preferred peace with the preservation of the revolutionary republic on its shores to a thermonuclear war with an unknown outcome;

B) promised in the event of a peaceful solution to the Caribbean crisis to go further to broader agreements with the USSR and other social. countries regarding the containment of the arms race, the reduction of the threat of war, the easing of international tension;

Thus, the Cuban Missile Crisis became, in essence, the starting point for some reorientation of the foreign policy of the Kennedy administration.

“Thus began a short period of easing tensions between the superpowers, the so-called détente. In the summer of 1963, in addition to signing a treaty on limiting nuclear weapons tests, both countries opened a 24-hour hotline ... in the spirit of improving relations, Moscow agreed for the first time that a disarmament treaty, at least for a while, would allow the superpowers to maintain their nuclear arsenals.

Prior to this, the USSR offered either mutual nuclear disarmament as a first step, or nothing. The Cuban Missile Crisis was history, but thanks to it both Kennedy and Khrushchev were ready to improve relations. Khrushchev needed a more predictable relationship with Kennedy, and Kennedy had the opportunity to adjust public opinion accordingly in order to gain approval for his foreign policy.

We also note that in domestic studies of recent years there are a number of assessments that interpret the Caribbean crisis "as" as failed imperial ambitions that ran into the realities of the nuclear age ".

In Russian historiography, also, one of the consequences of the liquidation of the crisis is a gradual change in the situation in the world: a number of international treaties, including on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and on the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests in three areas (water, atmosphere, space), which were concluded in the first half of the 60s.

Thus, in domestic and foreign studies, one can find some polarity of assessments about the results of the Caribbean crisis for each of the actors, however, almost all serious, monographic studies emphasize the fact that it was the resolution of the Caribbean crisis that made it possible for some kind of detente in international relations in mid 60s.

The resolution of the Caribbean crisis, although it saved the world from nuclear war, however, left many dissatisfied with its results. In fact, in the eyes of the world community, a situation has developed in which the Soviet Union has "reversed" in resolving the situation that it itself created. The Cuban leadership regarded the move to withdraw nuclear missiles from the island as a betrayal. Some circles of the US military departments turned out to be dissatisfied, and they assessed the agreements reached as a "defeat of the United States." Thus, for example, the commander of the US Air Force, General Lemay, called the refusal to attack Cuba "the worst defeat in our history";

However, not all the consequences of the Caribbean crisis can be assessed as negative. The so-called "detente" in world tension that occurred in subsequent years is associated with the results of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis;

In foreign historiography, it is emphasized that the Caribbean crisis is the most difficult stage in the relationship between the two countries, and it is concluded that "the whole world endured the impression of the defeat of the USSR." In general, the question of what the United States "gained and lost" as a result of the outbreak and subsequent resolution of the crisis in the Caribbean Sea is still being debated in the Western press and studies on foreign relations. At the same time, attempts are often made to present the actions of the Kennedy government during this period as "forced" and also to ascribe to the United States a certain "victory" over the Soviet Union;

Thus, we briefly got acquainted with the current trends in historical science in the field of interpreting the results of the Caribbean crisis as a necessary outcome for future detente in international relations. Let us now turn to the last task of our work - to study the modern vision of the Caribbean crisis as a turning point in the Cold War.

§3.2 Caribbean crisis as a turning point in the Cold War

In the previous presentation, we have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the "Caribbean crisis" serves as a kind of watershed in relation to the two countries. This is also confirmed by the already mentioned detente in international relations, which began in the mid-1960s, as well as by many facts indicating that the military doctrines of the two superpowers began to change.

The concept of "cold war" with the meaning, which we got acquainted with in the first part of the work, implied an economic, political and ideological confrontation between the USSR and the USA. The Caribbean crisis set a number of priorities that now had to guide the leaders of the two superpowers.

After 1962, the danger of nuclear war receded, but it was not completely eliminated.

A new situation has arisen in which the superpowers have the opportunity to somewhat reduce the tension in relations. At the same time, the ideological struggle between them continued. Khrushchev authorized aid to Algeria, believing that he would eventually help Angola. Kennedy stubbornly defended South Vietnam. However, both Moscow and Washington tried to find a peaceful solution to their problems. Khrushchev tried to teach Castro to do without Soviet troops on the island. For his part, Kennedy limited sabotage in Cuba, hoping to carry out his tasks through the hands of Cubans opposed to the Castro regime, which, however, seemed unlikely.

After the Caribbean crisis, there were other crises - primarily the Vietnamese (the invasion of American troops in Vietnam), Czechoslovakia (the entry of Soviet troops into Czechoslovakia and the suppression of the so-called "Velvet Revolution"), the Afghan crisis, the incident with the downed Korean plane and others.

However, it should be noted that the resolution of these international issues and disputes now assumed a completely different approach. First of all, diplomatic means of persuading counterparties were now used. Almost never came to an open armed confrontation.

In 1972, an agreement was signed between the USSR and the USA on the limitation of anti-missile defense systems and an agreement on measures to reduce the risk of a nuclear war between the USSR and the USA. In the future, the situation with the Cold War becomes even more stable, until it completely disappears in the early 1990s (due to the demise of the USSR). Thus, the Caribbean crisis is presented as the highest phase of the confrontation between the USSR and the USA.

Now let's take a brief look at the main approaches in interpreting the Caribbean crisis as the highest phase, apogee, of the Cold War.

In modern Russian studies, there is, on the whole, one general approach to this issue (if we discard the political, journalistic and ideological background of these studies).

The main leitmotif of modern Russian research is the idea that the Cuban Missile Crisis is a turning point both in the Cold War and in relations between the USA and the USSR. We also note that in some studies the Caribbean crisis is considered in the context of the unsatisfied imperial ambitions of the USSR (or the USA), which means that its results are interpreted from the same approaches.

So in a number of cases, while agreeing that the Caribbean Crisis is a turning point in the war, researchers note that it was from these times that the backlog of the USSR from the United States became apparent to the whole world, and the Soviet leadership was forced to make more and more political concessions to the United States. In Western historiography, on the contrary, in a number of cases it is emphasized that the nature of Kennedy's concessions in relation to the USSR testifies to the inexcusable liberalism of the American president.

However, these approaches are the exception rather than the rule. Basically, both in domestic and foreign historiography, it is emphasized that it was after the Caribbean crisis that the Cold War began to decline. Moreover, talking about “winners” or “losers” is rather inappropriate here.

Now we formulate the last intermediate conclusions on our work:

The resolution of the Caribbean crisis, although it saved the world from nuclear war, however, left many dissatisfied with its results. However, not all the consequences of the Caribbean crisis can be assessed as negative. The so-called "detente" in world tension that occurred in subsequent years is associated with the results of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis;

Currently, domestic and foreign studies provide different points of view on the outcome of the crisis;

The main leitmotif of domestic interpretations of the issue is the provision that the Caribbean crisis was a kind of watershed in relations between the two powers. These events clearly demonstrated that there is a more than probable danger of a nuclear clash between countries, showed that the most reasonable way to resolve disputes under the prevailing atomic parity is the path of negotiations;

Since the crisis was resolved peacefully, both sides are recognized as winners - both the USA and the USSR, at the same time, if the war did start, then there would be no winners at all.

CONCLUSION

Now, in accordance with the goals and objectives set in the introduction, let's sum up the main results of our graduation project.

Recall that our main goal was to study the main trends in the study of the Caribbean crisis in modern domestic and foreign historiography.

To achieve this goal, certain tasks were set. For the logic of presenting our conclusions, we will present them separately for each task.

Our first task is to study and analyze the background of the Caribbean confrontation through the eyes of modern scientists. , to identify modern approaches to the "cold war" in general, and to identify the most significant causes of the Caribbean crisis for modern scientists. In the course of studying the available historiographical base, we came to the following general conclusions:

Much attention is paid to the Cold War both in foreign and in Soviet and then Russian historiography of the Cold War. Considerable literature has been devoted to this issue, and the Cold War itself is regarded as one of the most significant moments in recent history. At the same time, the first decades of the Cold War (40-60s of the XX century) are considered as the most explosive phase of this conflict, after which there is a gradual decline in tension and the beginning of detente.

The main leitmotif of Soviet studies of that phase of the Cold War that took place in the 40s-60s of the XX century is that the responsibility for unleashing the "cold war" lies with the United States, and the main driving force of the whole process was the anti-communism inherent in US foreign and domestic policy. . The main trend of modern Russian studies of the Cold War issues is the idea of the mutual responsibility of the USA and the USSR for unleashing a global confrontation.

In the foreign historiography of the issue until the beginning of the 80s of the XX century, the Cold War was considered as the result of the "expansion of world communism", as the desire of the West to resist communist aggression. In modern foreign historiography, the idea can be traced that, since both the USSR and the USA directed their efforts to folding systems of military-political alliances, it is impossible to identify the initiator of the formation of military-bloc systems.

The Caribbean Crisis is considered the peak of the Cold War both in foreign and domestic historiography. At the same time, the causes of the Caribbean crisis are very diverse and are expressed by a whole range of relations between the USA and the USSR, as well as their allies. The main approaches to studying the causes of the Caribbean crisis are somewhat different within the framework of domestic and foreign historical schools.

The main conclusion of modern Russian research is that although both superpowers were guilty of the Caribbean crisis, the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was just an asymmetric response to US actions in Turkey.

The Cuban revolution, although considered as one of the contributory causes of the Caribbean crisis, however, is not among the main causes. So, there are opinions that the USSR could find other allies in Latin America (for example, Honduras). The personalities and relationships of N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy are considered as an integral part of the history of the Caribbean crisis and its causes.

The main trends in foreign study of the causes of the Caribbean crisis can be formulated as follows:

The Caribbean crisis is considered as a component of the so-called. the Berlin Crisis of 1958-1963;

There are opinions that the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba was just an asymmetric response to US actions in Turkey;

There are separate, successful moments of cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, the work "Infernal Game", which indicate that when studying the causes of the Caribbean crisis, the most successful is an integrated approach, in which the opinions of all actors are studied.

Our next task was to trace the features of the vision of development, aggravation and resolution of the Caribbean crisis in modern historiography. Our main conclusions here are that the positions of modern researchers regarding the development and aggravation of the crisis, in general, can be reduced to the following results:

Regarding the complex of issues related to the transfer of Soviet armed forces to Cuba, modern researchers (mainly authors of monographic publications) emphasize, firstly, the clandestine nature of the operation, and secondly, the clear underestimation on the part of the Americans of the very possibility of transferring Soviet armed forces and atomic missiles to Cuba;

The researchers generally point out that among the Soviet leadership in 1962, the opinion was growing stronger that even if the United States learned about the missiles before they were put on alert, the Anadyr operation would be successfully completed, since John F. Kennedy would have to come to terms with the fact that he discovers in Cuba;

In modern studies of the issue, one can see several directions for studying the causes and conditions that made it possible to resolve the crisis, this is the personal role of N. Khrushchev and D. Kennedy, the role of informal contacts between Soviet and American intelligence.

The position of Cuban leaders is usually singled out as a separate aspect of the problem being studied. Let's take a closer look at these areas.

At the same time, we note the "descriptive" nature of the research devoted directly to the resolution of the "Caribbean crisis".

Thus, the period of development, exacerbation and resolution of the Caribbean crisis has found a worthy reflection in modern historiography. It can be noted that in recent years, based on the analysis of a huge number of sources, researchers have made largely successful attempts to draw a complete picture of the events immediately preceding the resolution of the Caribbean crisis.

The last tasks of the thesis were related to the study of the main approaches of modern science to the historical significance of the "Caribbean crisis".

The conclusions on these tasks can be formulated as follows:

Currently, domestic and foreign studies provide different points of view on the outcome of the crisis;

In foreign historiography, it is emphasized that the Caribbean crisis is the most difficult stage in the relationship between the two countries, and it is concluded that "the whole world endured the impression of the defeat of the USSR." At the same time, attempts are often made to present the actions of the Kennedy government during this period as "forced" and also to ascribe to the United States a certain "victory" over the Soviet Union;

Now let's take a brief look at the main approaches in interpreting the Caribbean crisis as the highest phase, apogee, of the Cold War. Basically, both in domestic and foreign historiography, it is emphasized that it was after the Caribbean crisis that the Cold War began to decline. Moreover, talking about “winners” or “losers” is rather inappropriate here.

Since the crisis was resolved peacefully, both sides are recognized as winners - both the USA and the USSR, at the same time, if the war did start, then there would be no winners at all.

Thus, we can draw a general conclusion of the work - the theme of the Caribbean confrontation over the years of its existence has already become largely traditional for both domestic and foreign science. Numerous studies of the issue that have appeared in recent years confirm that this topic does not lose and will not lose its relevance for a long time.

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

1. Infernal Game: The Secret History of the Caribbean Crisis 1958-1964 - M.: Press, 1999. - S. 480.

2. Alekseeva A. Caribbean Crisis. How it was // Echo of the planet. 2003. N 3. - 32-47.

3. Anichkin V. S., Trofimenko G. A. USSR - USA: peaceful coexistence as a norm of relations. – M.: Nauka, 1987. – 230 p.

4. Batyuk V.I., Evstafiev D.G. The geopolitical context of the beginning of the Cold War: lessons for the 1990s // USA - economy, politics, ideology. - 1994. - No. 10. - S. 23-35.

5. Belousov M. Who is responsible for the Cold War? // International life. No. 2. - 1958. - S. 18-26.

6. Boffa Giuseppe. History of the Soviet Union. T. II. - M.: AST, 1990. - 346 p.

8. Viskov S. I. American historians and publicists about the "cold war" // New and recent history. 1967. No. 6. - S. 34-46.

9. Gadzhiev K.S. Ideology and foreign policy // Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya. - 1991.- No. 6. - S. 78-90.

10. Dmitriev B. USA: politicians, generals, diplomats. - M.: Pravda, 1971. - 230 p.

11. Evstafiev D. Lessons of the Cold War // New Russia. - 1996. - No. 4. - S. 67-87.

12. Ivanina E.A. From George Washington to George Bush: The White House and the Press. M.: Press-Auto, 2001. - 294 p.

13. History of foreign policy of the USSR. 1917-1975 / Ed. A. A. Gromyko, B. N. Ponomareva. M.: International relations, 1976. - 425 p.

14. Historical science in the XX century: Historiography of the history of modern and modern times in Europe and America / Ed. I. P. Dementieva, A. I. Patrusheva. M.: ROSPEN, 2002. - 272 p.

15. History of diplomacy / Ed. A. A. Gromyko. T. IV. M.: International relations, 1975. - 376 p.

16. Zubok V. M., Pechatnov V. O. Historiography of the cold war in Russia: some results of the decade // Patriotic history. - 2003. - 4. - S. 12-24

17. Kaliev M.V. A Brief History of Cuba. - M.: Prosvet, 1995. - S. 280.

18. Kissinger G. Diplomacy. - M.: Nauka, 1997. - 856 p.

19. Kolomeiko A.S. When and how did the "cold war" start? // International life. - 1990. - No. 10.- S. 34-46.

20. Kornienko G. M. "Cold War": evidence of its participant. - M., 1994. - 190 p.

21. Kremenyuk V. A. Russia - USA: towards a new confrontation? // USA - economy, politics, ideology. - 1994. - No. 10. - S. 18-29.

22. Kunina A.E., Poznyakov V.V. Soviet-American Relations in the Nuclear Age // American Yearbook. - 1990. - S. 89-99

23. Markina N. N. Some aspects of the emergence of the "cold war" in American historiography // Questions of new and recent history. - 2002. - No. 3. - P. 7-19;

24. Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M.: Academy, 2006. - 480 p.

25. Pleshakov KV The Soviet Union and the United States, the experience of mutual perception // USA - economy, politics, ideology. - 1989. - No. 9. - S. 27-36.

26. Plashinsky A. A. The initial period of the Cold War and the formation of the concept of US global leadership // General History. - 2002. - No. 2. - S. 23-36.

27. Putilin B. G. The Caribbean Crisis of 1962 // Soviet Foreign Policy during the Cold War (1945-1985). M.: AST, 2005. S. 283-302.

28. Sudoplatov P. A. Intelligence and the Kremlin. Notes of an unwanted witness. M.: Prof, 1996. - 289 p.

29. Trofimenko G.A. USA: politics, war, ideology. - M.: Sputnik +, 2001. - S. 378.

30. Shenin S.Yu. The Beginning of the Cold War: Anatomy of the "Great Turn" // USA - Economy, Politics, Ideology. - 1994. - No. 12. - S. 87-95.

31. Filitov A. M. "Cold War": Historiographic discussions in the West. M.: Time, 1991. - 268 p.

32. Khludenev I. M. "Round table" in the USSR Foreign Ministry // New and recent history. - 1991. - No. 5. - S. 47-59.

33. Cold war". New approaches, new documents. - M .: Time plus, 1995.- P. 384.

34. Khrushchev N. Memories. M.: Vagrius, 1997. - 450 p.

35. Khrushchev S. N. The birth of a superpower: A book about the father. M.: Vagrius, 2002.- 340 p.

36. Khrushchev S. Cuban Missile Crisis. Events almost got out of control of the Kremlin and the White House // International Affairs. - 2002. - No. 5. S. 57-79.

37. Chubaryan A. O. New history of the cold war // New and recent history. - 1997.- No. 6. - S. 230;

38. Yakovlev A. N. The ideological poverty of the Cold War apologists. M.: Press, 1961.- 260 p.

39. Yakovleva N.N. "Washington. Crossing the line." M.: Pravda, 1989. - S. 367.

40. Abel E. The Missile Crisis. New York, 1966. P. 348.

41. Allison G. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston, 1971. P. 468.

42. Dinnerstein N. The Making of a Missile Crisis. New York, 1976. P. 312.

43. Detzer D. The Brink: Cuban Missile Crisis. New York, 1979/ P. 289.

44. Philip Brenner, "Thirteen Months: Cuba's Perspectives on the Missile Crisis", in the Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited, ed. James A. Nathan (New York 1992), p. 201.

See, for example: Evstafiev D. Lessons of the "Cold War" // New Russia. - 1996. - No. 4. - S. 67-87.

See e.g. Belousov M. Who is responsible for the "cold war"? // International life. 1958.

See e.g. Yakovlev A. N. Ideological poverty of the apologists of the Cold War. M., 1961; Viskov S. I. American historians and publicists about the "cold war" // New and recent history. 1967. No. 6

See e.g. Belousov M. Who is responsible for the "cold war"? // International life. 1958. No. 11; Marushkin B. At the origins of atomic diplomacy // International life. 1959. No. 7.

History of the foreign policy of the USSR. 1917-1975 / Ed. A. A. Gromyko, B. N. Ponomareva. T. 1-2. M., 1976; History of Diplomacy / Ed. A. A. Gromyko. T. IV. M., 1975; International relations after the Second World War / Ed. N. N. Inozemtseva. T. I. M., 1962; Anichkin V. S., Trofimenko G. A. USSR - USA: peaceful coexistence as a norm of relations

Dmitriev B. USA: politicians, generals, diplomats. M., 1971.

See other Pleshakov KV The Soviet Union and the United States, the experience of mutual perception // USA - economy, politics, ideology. 1989. No. 9.

Khludenev I.M. "Round table" at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs // Modern and recent history. 1991. No. 5; Kunina A.E., Poznyakov V.V. Soviet-American Relations in the Nuclear Age // American Yearbook. 1990. M., 1991.; When and how did the cold war start // International life. 1990. No. 10.

Shenin S.Yu. The Beginning of the Cold War: Anatomy of the "Great Turn" // USA - Economy, Politics, Ideology. 1994. No. 12; Gadzhiev K.S. Ideology and foreign policy // Mirovaya ekonomika i mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya. 1991. No. 1

See for example: Batyuk V.I., Evstafiev D.G. Geopolitical Context of the Beginning of the Cold War: Lessons for the 1990s // USA - Economics, Politics, Ideology. - 1994. - No. 10. - S. 23-35.

See for example: "Cold War". New approaches, new documents. M., 1995; Kornienko G. M. "Cold War": evidence of its participant. M., 1994; Sudoplatov P. A. Intelligence and the Kremlin. Notes of an unwanted witness. M., 1996.; and etc.

About the group's work See eg. Chubaryan A. O. New history of the cold war // New and recent history. 1997. No. 6; Zubok V. M., Pechatnov V. O. Historiography of the "cold war" in Russia: some results of the decade // Otechestvennaya istoriya. 2003. No. 4; and etc.

Evstafiev D. Lessons of the Cold War // New Russia. 1996. No. 4; Kremenyuk V. A. Russia - USA: towards a new confrontation? // USA - economy, politics, ideology. 1994. No. 10; Batyuk V. I., Evstafiev D. G. Geopolitical Context of the Beginning of the Cold War: Lessons for the 1990s // USA - Economics, Politics, Ideology. 1994. No. 10.

Plashinsky A. A. The initial period of the Cold War and the formation of the US global leadership concept // Belarusian Journal of International Law and International Relations. 2002. No. 1.

Markina N. N. Some aspects of the emergence of the "cold war" in American historiography // Questions of new and recent history. Kyiv, 1982. No. 28.; Filitov A. M. "Cold War": Historiographic discussions in the West. M., 1991. S. 105.

See e.g. Vert. N. History of the Soviet state. M., 1992.

See other review. Historical Science in the 20th Century: Historiography of the History of Modern and Modern Times in Europe and America / Ed. I. P. Dementieva, A. I. Patrusheva. M., 2002.

Information is given according to: Kaliev M.V. A Brief History of Cuba. - M.: Prosvet, 1995. - S. 280.

For an overview of Cuban-Soviet relations, see for example: History of the Foreign Policy of the USSR. 1917-1975 / Ed. A. A. Gromyko, B. N. Ponomareva. M.: International relations, 1976. - 425 p.; Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis. - M.: Academy, 2006. - 480 p.

An overview of the geopolitical situation is given in: Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis. - M.: Academy, 2006. - 480 p.

Khrushchev N. Memoirs. M., 1997.

Khrushchev N. Memoirs. M.: Vagrius, 1997. S. 248.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis. M., 2006.

Khrushchev S. N. The Birth of a Superpower: A Book about the Father. M., 2002; Khrushchev S. Cuban Missile Crisis. Events almost got out of control of the Kremlin and the White House // International Affairs. 2002. No. 5. S. 57-79.

Putilin B. G. The Caribbean Crisis of 1962 // Soviet Foreign Policy during the Cold War (1945-1985). New reading / Rev. ed. L. N. Nezhinsky. M., 2005. S. 283-302.

Allison G. Essence of Decision: Explaining the Cuban Missile Crisis. Boston, 1971.; Dinnerstein H. The Making of a Missile Crisis. New York, 1976; Detzer D. The Brink: Cuban Missile Crisis. New York, 1979; Abel E. The Missile Crisis. New York, 196;

Kissinger G. Diplomacy. - M.: Nauka, 1997. S. 678.

For more details, see, for example: Markina N. N. Some aspects of the emergence of the "cold war" in American historiography // Questions of new and recent history. - 2002. - No. 3. - P. 7-19; Cold war". New approaches, new documents. - M .: Time plus, 1995. - P. 384; Historical science in the twentieth century: Historiography of the history of modern and recent times in Europe and America / Edited by I. P. Dementiev, A. I. Patrusheva, Moscow: ROSPEN, 2002, 272 p.

Infernal Game: The Secret History of the Caribbean Crisis 1958-1964. M., 1999.

The review is cited from: Infernal Game: The Secret History of the Caribbean Crisis 1958-1964. - M.: Press, 1999; Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean Crisis. - M.: Academy, 2006. - 480 p.

Infernal Game: The Secret History of the Caribbean Crisis 1958-1964. - M.: Press, 1999. - S. 140. Quoted from: Viskov S. I. American Historians and Publicists on the Cold War // Modern and Contemporary History. 1967. No. 6. - P. 37.

Caribbean crisis

INTRODUCTION

1. 2 Caribbean crisis as a reflection and component of the Cold War

3.1 Geopolitical implications of the conflict

3.2 The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Limitation of Nuclear Weapons

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

The roots of many modern problems of international politics and foreign economic relations lie in the plane of the post-war arrangement of the world.

The Second World War and its results led to dramatic changes. The United States has become the strongest economic power. They came out on top in the world in terms of industrial production and other important economic indicators, and strengthened their position as a global creditor. In the USSR, victory in the war, achieved by the steadfastness and courage of the entire people, led to the strengthening of the positions of the Stalinist totalitarian regime. Already during the war, a new system of international relations began to take shape, based on the principles of peaceful existence. However, after its completion, profound changes took place in relations between the victorious states.

During the years of the Cold War, a sharp and uncompromising struggle was waged in all sectors of the confrontation. Even at a time when, under the influence of achieving a certain balance in the balance of nuclear missile weapons, a certain relaxation of international tension was formally observed, intensive work was going on, hidden from the world community, to outstrip the opposite camp in the development of an offensive nuclear missile potential.

The Cold War did not lead to a direct clash between the armed forces of opposing military-political blocs or a severance of diplomatic relations. However, at times it has brought the world to the brink of a global catastrophe. One of these conflicts was the Caribbean (Cuban) crisis - a sharp aggravation of relations between the USSR and the USA in the second half of 1962, which put the world before the threat of nuclear war.

The purpose of this work is a comprehensive analysis of the Caribbean crisis as one of the geopolitical factors of the Cold War era and the positions of the parties to resolve it.

To achieve this goal, the following tasks are put forward in the work:

- analyze the actions of the parties to prevent a direct clash and resolve the crisis;

– consider the outcomes and consequences of the conflict in the context of international relations.

- Give an assessment of the Caribbean crisis in historiography.

1. THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COLD WAR: PROBLEM ASPECTS

1. 1 "Cold War": essence and periodization

The Cold War is a military-political confrontation of states after the Second World War, in which an arms race was carried out, various pressure measures were applied in the international arena, military-political blocs and alliances were created, and there was a real threat of unleashing a new world war.

Cold War methods included:

- propaganda war;

- active participation of the USA and the USSR, NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries in regional conflicts;

- the struggle for influence on the countries of the "third world";

- a strategy of mutual nuclear intimidation, confrontation of military-political blocs in the international arena;

- space arms race, etc.

The Cold War did not lead to a direct clash between the armed forces of opposing military-political blocs or a severance of diplomatic relations. However, at times it has brought the world to the brink of a global catastrophe, “sparkling” with outbreaks of “hot” conflicts in different regions of the planet.

The Cold War was not the result of any decision, but the result of a dilemma faced by the parties. Each side felt an irresistible desire to pursue exactly the policy that the other could not see otherwise than as a threat to the principles of establishing peace. Then each side felt an urgent need to take defensive measures. Thus, the Russians saw no other choice but to strengthen their security in Eastern Europe. The Americans, who believed that this was only the first step towards Western Europe, reacted by declaring their interests in a zone that the Russians considered very important for their security ... Each side passionately believed that future international stability depended on the success of its own concept of a world order".

There are 2 stages in the periodization of the Cold War:

The first period of the Cold War began in 1945. It ended in 1975, when for the first time in history a pan-European Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe was held, where an attempt was made to build a system of international relations on the principles of peaceful coexistence.

The second period of the Cold War began in the late 1970s. and ended in the early 1990s. The end of the Cold War was facilitated, first of all, by the revision by the new Soviet leadership of the main foreign policy principles, as well as democratic transformations in the countries of the socialist system and its collapse.

camps” and the Western world.

Thus, the main prerequisites for the emergence of the Cold War are:

- a sharp aggravation of the struggle for spheres of influence between the USSR and the Western world, led by the United States in the countries of the "third world";

1. 2 The Caribbean crisis as a reflection and component of the Cold War

The Cold War led to the first crises and open military confrontation. One of its striking manifestations was the Caribbean crisis, the origins of which were associated with the victory in January 1959 of the revolution in Cuba, the overthrow of the pro-American Batista regime and the coming to power of the representative of the pro-communist forces, F. Castro. US-Cuban relations deteriorated sharply.

In 1960, the United States set out to establish an economic blockade of Cuba, and in January 1961 broke off diplomatic relations with it. In April of the same year, an unsuccessful landing of armed formations of Cuban emigrants from the United States into Cuban territory followed.

actions and carriers of nuclear weapons - Il-28 bombers.

J. Kennedy announced the imposition of a naval blockade of Cuba on October 22, 1962 and sent warships of the US Navy to its shores. All Soviet ships heading for Cuba were subject to inspection.

disaster these days was real as never before.

for a reasonable compromise. The USSR agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba in exchange for the United States lifting the blockade of the island and providing Cuba with security guarantees.

This is the factual outline of events. Let us consider some of them in more detail, focusing on problematic geopolitical aspects.

The most important aspect of the study of the Cuban crisis is that it cannot be regarded as merely an episode of Soviet-American or Soviet-Cuban relations, in isolation from the development of international relations during the Cold War period. The events around Cuba can only be understood in the context of the main events of that time: the Berlin crisis, the construction of the Berlin Wall, international relations in the Far East, etc. All of them in one way or another turned out to be connected together.

agree to some measures to strengthen the Berlin Wall. Consent was obtained, but Moscow asked for it to be done without delay so as not to interfere with future negotiations with the United States on a German peace treaty. In fact, the Kremlin apparently wanted to avoid any international complication before Operation Anadyr was completed.

Moscow before the scheduled date (previously it was assumed that they would come to celebrate the next anniversary of the October Revolution, November 7). Ulbricht motivated his appeal with a desire to discuss the SED program and questions of a German peace settlement, although it was clear that it was not only about the German peace treaty. Growing tensions threatened international cataclysms and the possibility of major changes. The Kremlin agreed, and the leaders of the GDR arrived in Moscow on 1 November. By this time, however, the acute phase of the Cuban crisis was over, and literally a day later the delegation of the GDR departed back. There is no doubt that the discussion of the German question naturally intertwined with the Cuban crisis.

The role of intelligence in these events continues to attract researchers. It should be noted that the intelligence services were not up to par on both sides, although it cannot be said that this was always and everywhere. For example, according to popular belief in the West, Cuban and Soviet intelligence failed to learn in time about the impending invasion of Playa Giron, which was planned and carried out on April 17, 1961 by the US Central Intelligence Agency and the Cuban Contras. In fact, the KGB had a fairly effective network of agents in Latin America, and Mexico was the main point of information flow. The main providers of information were, as a rule, representatives of the communist parties of Central America. In the Cuban case, the most important information came from Guatemala from the Guatemalan communists. A few days before Playa Giron, Moscow received information from "Guatemalan friends" through a Mexican KGB station that Cuba would soon be attacked. “That's right,” the KGB chief wrote in the margins of the telegram, and a corresponding message flew to Havana.

Thus, two days before the invasion, Cuban leaders received warning of the impending attack. They were better prepared to repel it. By that time, the Cuban troops were already well equipped with Soviet weapons, including heavy weapons: MiG fighter-bombers and tanks.

predicted that the United States would attack Cuba if, firstly, Castro made an attempt to seize the American military base of Guantanamo and, secondly, if he gave another country the right to place missiles on its territory. This prediction was undoubtedly based on the information received by intelligence agents. Subsequently, it found confirmation in published American documents.

Speaking before a congress of teachers on July 9, 1961, Khrushchev announced his readiness to provide decisive military support to Cuba, covering it with a nuclear umbrella, in case it was subjected to aggression. Shortly thereafter, Raul Castro visited Moscow. He asked Khrushchev: what does the promise of a Soviet nuclear umbrella mean? How far, he asked, was the Soviet Union prepared to go in defense of Cuba? Khrushchev was friendly but cautious. He advised the Cubans not to exaggerate his nuclear promise. "Neither you nor we," he said, "are interested in an escalation of international tension."

Two months later, after Raul Castro, Che Guevara arrived in Moscow. He met with Soviet leaders. Archival data on the progress of the negotiations, as well as on whether the issue of nuclear weapons was discussed then, could not be found. However, if rumors are to be believed, this issue was discussed and raised at the initiative of the Cuban guest. Upon his return to Havana after a visit to Moscow and then to Beijing, Che Guevara spoke on radio and television declaring his commitment to the cause of peace. In the event of an atomic war, Che said, Cuba "won't get well," but "he who attacks us will pay dearly": if the United States attacks Cuba, they will have to try Soviet nuclear weapons.

In fact, the Kremlin decided to deploy missiles in Cuba much later. D. A. Volkogonov in his book “Seven Leaders” writes that at a meeting of the Politburo in the spring of 1962, after the report of the Minister of Defense, Marshal R. Ya. missiles in Cuba? Malinovsky was startled, not knowing what to say.

newspaper "Izvestia" A. I. Adzhubey. In his report to the Central Committee, he described a meeting with President John F. Kennedy. The President assured him that the US was not going to attack Cuba. Adjubey replied that he believed that the United States was not going to do this, but could they guarantee that the Cuban Contras and the Guatemalan counter-revolutionary forces, which at one time organized the attack on Playa Giron, would not attack, would not do it? Kennedy responded sharply: "I scolded Dulles and told him, follow the example of the Russians, when they had problems in Hungary, they solved them in three days, and you, Dulles, can't do anything." Khrushchev regarded this information as a threat to Cuba: Kennedy was going to do with it the same way as the Soviet Union with Hungary. Undoubtedly something else.

The final Soviet decision to deploy missiles in Cuba came about as a result of intelligence reports of ongoing American preparations for an invasion of Cuba. This was especially clear after the Kremlin learned of the Pentagon's plans to launch a preemptive nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. Both the KGB agents and the GRU (military intelligence) reported this several times. The last reports on this subject arrived in Moscow on March 9 and 12, 1962. History has a lot of evidence that military plans are often not implemented, remaining on the shelves of military departments. But Khrushchev had strong doubts in this case, and his doubts were unexpectedly confirmed by the report of Georgy Bolshakov, the cultural attaché of the Soviet embassy in Washington, who was a GRU colonel and served as a conduit for secret communications between the Kremlin and the White House. He was in close contact with the President's brother Robert Kennedy for a long time.

On September 7, Khrushchev signed an order that tactical nuclear weapons be delivered to Cuba. The decision came after the White House said on September 4 that the most serious consequences would be if the Soviet Union sent offensive nuclear weapons to Cuba. If this happened, the US statement said, if large ground forces were found there and missiles were found, then the US government did not rule out an invasion of Cuba. But Khrushchev was not going to retreat. Operation Anadyr continued.

Soviet intelligence did not know anything about the American reconnaissance flight on October 14 and that after it continued lengthy meetings of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, which was created by order of Kennedy. These meetings went on for a whole week before President Kennedy announced his address to the people. Soviet intelligence was unable to penetrate this secret, although A. S. Feklisov, the KGB resident in Washington, had previously reported to Moscow that he had good sources of information in high American circles.

obtained by representatives of the GRU, military intelligence, who informed Moscow that there was a troop movement in the southern United States. They believed it was related to the planned invasion of Cuba. As for the KGB, its most reliable source in Mexico was also silent.

2. ROLE J. KENNEDY AND N. KHRUSHCHEV IN SETTLEMENT OF THE CARIBBEAN CONFLICT

2. 1 Kennedy's position on the Caribbean conflict

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) - 35th President of the United States, the first Catholic President of the United States, the youngest elected president in the history of the country. It is well known that the first "introductory" meeting of the Soviet and American leaders in Vienna in June 1961 was tense and very sparingly covered in the Soviet media, which did not allow the Soviet people to make a judgment about the person with whom the Soviet leaders had to deal in coming years. Official communiqués recorded in the most general terms only the topics discussed during the negotiations, but not their essence and, of course, not the tone in which both leaders exchanged their views on international problems. Commenting on the later content of conversations with N. S. Khrushchev, J. Kennedy told the American political observer J. Reston: “In my opinion, he [Khrushchev] did this because of the Gulf of Pigs. I think he thought that anyone who was so young and inexperienced to get into this mess and not cope was weak in the knees. As long as he adheres to such ideas, we will not achieve anything with him. So we have to act." Kennedy clearly understood Khrushchev's belief in the existence of three types of wars - traditional, nuclear and liberation wars, only the last of which was, in the opinion of the Soviet leader, historically inevitable.

This meeting did not solve a single problem of bilateral and international relations, and both leaders returned to their capitals, not hoping for an opportunity to agree on something significant in the coming years. Moreover, the irreconcilable position taken by N. S. Khrushchev on the Berlin question testified to the prospect of only a further complication of Soviet-American relations.

- one of the biggest international crises since the end of World War II. During its two weeks, the world was closer to a third nuclear war than at any time in the post-war decades.

What happened in the United States over the next few days can be described in a few words - general confusion, a premonition of imminent and imminent death, a state close to reckless panic (absolute calm was observed in the USSR, since ordinary Soviet citizens for the most part remained unaware of threatening catastrophe and later, having learned about what was going on in the USA, they did not hide their surprise, attributing all this to the “war hysteria” that had played out there). An atmosphere of anxious expectation reigned in the building of the UN Secretariat, where if not the main, then quite important events unfolded. When President Kennedy's expected speech on the evening of October 22 was announced to the nation, tensions reached a breaking point. Starting at 5 pm (the performance was scheduled for 7 pm New York time), all the halls where the TVs were installed were filled with people. In the hall of journalists accredited to the UN, people even sat on the floor. Nothing good could be expected: just over a year ago, President Kennedy's credibility was dealt a severe blow as a result of the debacle in the Gulf of Pigs. Although CIA director Alain Dulles was fired after this major foreign policy defeat, there was no doubt that the master of the White House was the main culprit of the disaster, as well as the main "victim". It was quite possible to assume that this time Kennedy would fully win back in Cuba and its main patron, the USSR, especially since there were people in the president’s inner circle who demanded decisive action in Cuba in order to eliminate F. Castro and his regime.

A minute or two before seven o'clock on the evening of October 22, an image of the ocean expanses appeared on the screen with a warship plying them, most likely a cruiser, and then the face of a senior naval officer, a typical "sea wolf", standing on the captain's bridge, as if carved from stone. The captain shook a cigarette out of the pack into his mouth, brought the lighter to it, and inhaled deeply. Well, everything! - it was clearly read on the faces of the journalists frozen in anxious expectation. And in absolute silence, a voice was heard from the screen: “Smoke Commodore cigarettes, the best cigarettes for real men!” There was a burst of intense laughter in the hall. Nobody expected this. And behind the cigarette ads, the calm but determined face of the American president appeared on the screen, who “as the first steps” announced a naval blockade of Cuba and an ultimatum demand made to the Soviet Union - to immediately remove Soviet missiles from the territory of the island. The phrase “as first steps” emphasized in the president's speech made it clear that the US administration was ready to take tougher measures, up to the start of hostilities, if Cuba and the Soviet Union failed to comply with the demands made.

The decisiveness of the position taken by the United States was evidenced by the words of the president that he had ordered the US armed forces "to be ready for any development of events", and his warning that a missile launched from Cuban territory against any country in the Western Hemisphere would be considered an attack by the Soviet Union against the United States, demanding an adequate retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union.

Much later it became known that Kennedy had the political courage not to succumb to the pressure of the "hawks" both in his entourage and in the country's political elite and press, who demanded more effective forceful sanctions against Cuba, including the torpedoing of Soviet ships marching to Cuba, as well as he had the wisdom of statesmanship never to mention in his speech the name of the Soviet leader, who had already become famous for the expression “we will bury you”, widely disseminated in America. Annoying him was not part of the plans of the American president, given the very real possibility of a tragic outcome of the conflict.

The whole world froze in anticipation of further developments, while two and a half dozen Soviet ships continued to follow in the direction of Cuba, and 90 American warships and 8 aircraft carriers took up positions on the outskirts of the island in order to intercept them and search for the presence of their on board missiles and weapons. According to the memoirs of former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, one of the important participants in the events of those days, returning home on Saturday night, October 27, he did not hope to live until the next Saturday.

In June 1963, the President delivered a speech at the American University (Washington) that immediately attracted the attention of the whole world. “I have chosen this moment and this place to discuss a topic about which ignorance is very often shown and the goal is very rarely pursued to achieve the truth, although this topic is the most important in the world - peace in the world,” Kennedy said. . − What world do I mean? What kind of peace are we trying to achieve? Not the Pax Americana imposed on the world by American weapons. Not the peace of the grave and not the safety of the slave. I'm talking about genuine peace, a world that makes life on earth worth living, a world that allows people and nations to develop, hope and build a better life for their children, not a world exclusively for Americans, but a world for all men and women, not just about peace in our time, but about peace for all time ... Total war ... does not make any sense in an age when one nuclear weapon contains explosive power, almost ten times the power that was applied by all the Allied air forces in World War II. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons formed during the exchange of nuclear strikes can be delivered by wind, water, through soil and seeds to the farthest corners of the planet and infect unborn generations.

“We Americans find communism deeply repugnant as a system that denies personal freedom and self-respect,” the president continued. “But we can still respect the Russian people for their many achievements in science and space, in economic and industrial development, in culture, as well as for their brave deeds.

Let us not close our eyes to our dissimilarity, but let us turn our attention to our common interests and to the means by which this dissimilarity can be eliminated. And if we are now unable to put an end to our differences, we can at least help to ensure that our differences do not threaten the world. Because ultimately the most important point of contact is that we all live on this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all care about the future of our children. And we are all mortal."

In the same month, the US and the USSR agreed to establish a "hot line" - a direct line of communication between Moscow and Washington in order to prevent the accidental outbreak of war, and on August 5, 1963, the US, USSR and Great Britain signed the Atmospheric Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, in outer space and underwater. This is the first international document since the beginning of the Cold War that limits the further improvement of nuclear weapons. In October 1963, the president approved the sale of $250 million worth of grain to the Soviet Union, which helped the Soviet leadership cope with the consequences of a crop failure.

outstanding political courage, not to mention political sanity. R. Kennedy recalled after the death of his brother: “During last year’s Cuban Missile Crisis, we discussed the possibility of war, an exchange of nuclear strikes and said that we could die - at that time the question of our personal fate seemed so unimportant, almost frivolous . The only thing that really cared for him, really mattered and made the situation much more dangerous than it could be by definition, was the prospect of children dying in our country and around the world - young people who did not bear the blame for the confrontation and did not have a ideas, but whose life would be as crossed out as the life of all other people ... The great tragedy was that in the event of our mistake, it would affect not only us, our future, our home, our country, but also on the lives, futures, homes and countries of those who have never been given the opportunity to play their part, to say "yes" or "no", to make their presence known.

According to T. Sorensen, J. Kennedy once remarked that "future historians, looking back at 1962, have every reason to consider it the year in which there was a radical change in the foreign policy of the United States." Also referring to the words of the President, Sorensen later stated that the Cuban Missile Crisis “contributed to the creation in the United States of a favorable atmosphere for spreading the conviction about the mortal hopelessness of a total“ victory ”in a nuclear war and about the creative possibilities of agreements ... Disarmament became more and more a necessity and everything less of a dream."

At a 2001 Carnegie Endowment Moscow roundtable conference to discuss the American feature film Thirteen Days, Kennedy's former adviser T. Sorensen said that we should be grateful that John F. Kennedy was then President of the United States. Thanks to him, the war was prevented.

However, one should remember how Khrushchev behaved. Ultimately, he did a lot to prevent a military catastrophe. Despite initially unduly harsh criticism of Kennedy and his impulsive nature, Khrushchev was able to overcome prejudices. He managed to restrain his emotions and did everything in his power to resolve the Soviet-American conflict over Cuba.

Three days after Kennedy's speech, after a sharp exchange of messages between Moscow and Washington, the situation began to change. At a meeting of the Politburo on October 25, Khrushchev declared that now is the time to stop the picking, not to resort to the old arguments, and "look around." He spoke of the need to remove Soviet missiles if the United States made a commitment not to invade Cuba.

2. 2 The reaction of N. Khrushchev and the leadership of the USSR to the escalation of the Caribbean crisis

Despite the ominous tone of the Soviet government's statements about the United States in the early days of the crisis, many Soviet leaders were bewildered and fearful of impending war. First of all, this concerned N. S. Khrushchev, who bore a large share of the responsibility for those decisions that ultimately led to the creation of the most severe crisis situation that could get out of control and lead to an exchange of nuclear strikes between the USSR and the USA. V. E. Semichastny claims that, having received the text of Kennedy's speech on radio and television, in which the American president accused the Soviet Union of creating a missile base in Cuba, demanded that the missiles be removed and announced "quarantine", "Khrushchev panicked.

If earlier in his speeches he threatened to “bury capitalism”, then at the very first emergency meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, with a completely serious face, he tragically said: “That's it. The cause of Lenin is lost! In the same way, Deputy Foreign Minister G. M. Kornienko assesses the mood of the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee.

These sentiments were also transmitted to other top party and government officials. It is known, for example, that L. I. Brezhnev, who, like other members of the Politburo, spent the night in his Kremlin office and participated almost around the clock in the meetings held by the bewildered Khrushchev, “did not approve of the very idea of \u200b\u200bplacing missiles, although he did not express any objections . The prospect of an exchange of nuclear strikes with the United States made him (and, probably, Khrushchev) tremble. Especially when our ambassador sent a telegram saying that Fidel called on the Soviet leadership to strike America, expressing the readiness of the Cuban side to "stand to the death." Similar emotions were experienced by the chairman of the KGB, who, after the beginning of the “public” stage of the crisis, was actively involved in the work to resolve it: “The thought that we are on the verge of war plunged everyone into awe.” Semichastny, like, most likely, other members of the Soviet leadership, really admitted the possibility of starting a new world war: “I had such a situation that I saw: everything is possible. The Cold War sometimes reached such a boiling point that it became scary.

Cuba didn't exist. In addition, President Kennedy's October 22 announcement of a "quarantine" on Cuba came as a complete surprise to members of

discussed).

The fact that the Soviet leadership seriously admitted the possibility of starting a war with the United States in the event that events get out of control and the United States strikes first, as well as the fact that this war will not be local, but global in nature, is indicated by reports Minister of Defense R. Ya. Malinovsky, during the days of the Caribbean crisis, regularly received by the Central Committee of the CPSU. They analyze the current situation not only in the Caribbean, but also in those regions where, according to the Soviet leadership, hostilities could begin - West Berlin, West Germany and the GDR, as well as in the Baltic, Black and Japanese seas; the state of military formations, strategic aviation and fleet groups is assessed not only by the United States, but also by other potential adversaries - Great Britain and France.

At the same time, the transcripts of the meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU during the Caribbean crisis indicate that the Soviet political leadership made every effort to prevent the escalation of the conflict and its escalation into a world war. So, on October 22, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Khrushchev said: “We do not want to unleash a war. We wanted to intimidate, to deter the US with regard to Cuba.” It was decided to stop sending weapons and military formations to Cuba, to return to the USSR the ships going to the “Island of Freedom” and which were at that time in the Mediterranean Sea, and in the event of an invasion of the US armed forces on the island, “at first, by all means, do not use atomic weapon" .

Cuba Soviet nuclear missiles split up. Part of the military and political advisers to President Kennedy (in historiography they are called "hawks") proposed an immediate strike on Soviet missile installations, which would inevitably lead to the death of Soviet troops and the escalation of the conflict into a full-scale nuclear war. Another group of members of the "Ex-Com" ("pigeons") believed that the crisis could be resolved through diplomatic means. D. Detzer suggests that the members of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU during the days of the crisis were also divided into "doves" and "hawks". However, this thesis is not supported by sources. The materials of the meetings of the Presidium of the Central Committee for October 22-28, 1962 allow us to conclude that none of the top leaders of the party and the state, including the military, proposed taking actions that could lead to an escalation of the crisis. The only exception is the proposal of V. V. Kuznetsov, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR, “to counteract American pressure in the Caribbean Sea with pressure on West Berlin,” which N. S. Khrushchev sharply opposed. The remaining members and candidate members of the Presidium of the Central Committee during the days of the Caribbean conflict unanimously supported the measures proposed by the First Secretary aimed at mitigating the situation. None of the members of the top political leadership of the USSR during the days of the crisis expressed confidence in the "victory of socialism" and the "death of imperialism" in the event of a nuclear war. In one of his speeches at a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, Khrushchev called a possible nuclear exchange between the USSR and the USA a "tragedy". Thus, in the days of the Caribbean crisis, the main goal of the top leadership of the USSR was precisely the peaceful resolution of the situation, the prevention of war.

The proposal to remove Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for a guarantee that the United States would not attack Cuba was already made on October 25. At the same time, N. S. Khrushchev noted that this was “not cowardice, but a reserve position,” and in the strategic plan, the Soviet Union did not lose anything, since “we can smash the USA and the territories of the USSR.” Everyone agreed that "it is not necessary to bring it to a boiling point, it is necessary to give the enemy reassurance." The final decision of the Soviet leadership to liquidate the missile bases in Cuba in exchange for guarantees of a non-aggression by the United States on Cuba was significantly influenced by several factors: 1) The message of the Soviet ambassador to the USA A.F. really can begin; 2) A letter from F. Castro to N. S. Khrushchev, in which, in the event of a US attack on Cuba, he proposed to launch a preventive nuclear strike on the United States; (the order to destroy the aircraft did not come from Moscow, but from the Cuban leadership). The last event was for N. S. Khrushchev proof that the situation was getting out of control, and the military in Cuba, contrary to the intentions of the Soviet leadership, would themselves be drawn into hostilities.

In addition, as A. A. Alekseev believes, the fact that the compensation offered by Kennedy for the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba allowed Khrushchev to save face before the world and especially Soviet public opinion played an important role in the decision to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba. opinion and not feel like a loser.

At the moment when an agreement with the United States was reached, as V.V. Grishin stated, “we all finally breathed a sigh of relief. At a meeting of the Presidium of the Central Committee, N. S. Khrushchev said that in these days of the Caribbean crisis, he felt with all his acuteness an enormous responsibility to the country, the Soviet people, the whole world for the direct danger of a nuclear catastrophe, that only now, when the crisis had passed, did he finally took a deep breath. We all shared this statement of his, for each of us was also aware of his share of responsibility for the possible tragic consequences of a military clash between the two great powers.

Some top party leaders criticized (albeit not publicly) the actions of N. S. Khrushchev, which put the USSR and the USA on the brink of a military conflict. Thus, P. E. Shelest, secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine during the Caribbean crisis, wrote in his diary: “A very alarming statement by our government regarding the speech of US President Kennedy in connection with the Skubin events. It can be seen that we had some kind of flaw, or maybe we just went too far. After all, there is a lot of self-confidence, it is not superfluous to relieve it. The aforementioned O. Troyanovsky, who on October 22 in a narrow circle of colleagues stated: “Well, now, at least, it has become obvious that this is a gamble. I never believed that we could covertly place our missiles in Cuba. It was an illusion that Marshal Biryuzov inspired Nikita Sergeevich. But it was even less likely that the Americans would swallow the pill and accept the existence of a missile base ninety miles from their border. Now we need to think about how to quickly carry away the legs, while maintaining a decent expression on the face. F. M. Burlatsky perceived the situation in the same way. However, unlike his colleagues, he even at that tense moment he did not believe in the reality of a nuclear war and knew absolutely firmly that under no circumstances Khrushchev would unleash such a war. Kennedy, too, would never make the fatal decision to launch a first nuclear strike. It seemed to me irrational from the point of view of both countries. At our level of advisers, many, like me, believed that Nikitushka had gone too far, and although his motives were good, the plan to secretly deploy missiles in Cuba turned out to be a gamble.

the elite of the nature of the global war between the socialist and capitalist blocs, as well as an understanding of their responsibility for the possible consequences of such a conflict. The main goal of this activity was the peaceful settlement of the crisis. Some of N. S. Khrushchev's associates criticized the decision to deploy Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba, regarding it as a "gamble".

Caribbean Crisis Cold War

3. HISTORICAL LESSONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS

over the enemy in the geopolitical or geostrategic sphere.

In this context, the USSR and the USA tried to win over to their side the liberation movement, which was becoming an increasingly influential factor in international life. It sought to develop its own approaches that did not fit well into the bipolar system and violated the existing demarcation into spheres of influence. The United States considered the American continent to be its fiefdom and reacted extremely painfully to the attempt of the Soviet Union to gain a foothold in its "backyard".

States. In regional terms, support for revolutionary Cuba meant a challenge to the monopoly influence of the United States on the American continent and reflected the formation of a new international situation. At the same time, the actions of the Soviet Union in the traditionally American sphere of influence explain some of the Kremlin's uncertainty, the desire to conduct the entire Anadyr operation in secret, to present Washington with a fait accompli.

Khrushchev's message to Kennedy on October 27 suggested that American missiles be removed from Turkey in exchange for Soviet missiles being removed from Cuba. The fact is that in general the exchange of views on Turkish missiles was initiated not by the Soviet Union, but by Kennedy's entourage immediately after the presidential message on October 22 through secret communication channels and, in particular, through Bolshakov. It is difficult to understand why this proposal was not discussed until 27 October. Nevertheless, the Soviet proposal, set out in an open message on an exchange of missiles, turned out to be unacceptable to the United States, as it would look like a concession. In fact, the United States verbally agreed that such an exchange would take place, and promised that the missiles from Turkey would soon be removed. It was a secret agreement, and it was carried out.

Undoubtedly, the most important lesson of the Caribbean crisis was that the leaders of the two superpowers realized and felt the danger of balancing on the brink of nuclear war. A political miscalculation, careless actions, an incorrect assessment of the enemy's intentions - all this threatened with an irreparable catastrophe for all mankind. As G. Kissinger, a participant in the events, noted, “As for Kennedy, after Cuba, his feelings underwent qualitative changes: a world in which states threaten each other with nuclear weapons now seemed to him not only irrational, but also intolerable and impossible.”

Unfortunately, politicians and diplomats; on the one hand, the military and representatives of the military-industrial complex, on the other hand, drew different conclusions from the most dangerous international crisis. The first understood the need to make some changes in the "rules of the game", to exclude the possibility of an accidental outbreak of nuclear war. For this, it was necessary to intensify the process of negotiations, to provide permanent, stable channels of communication. It is no coincidence that in June 1963 the USSR and the USA signed a special memorandum on the establishment of a special line of direct communication between Moscow and Washington. At the same time, representatives of the military-industrial complex sought to build up the arms race, especially strategic ones. At the same time, the United States wanted to consolidate the advantages gained, especially in terms of the quality of weapons, and the Soviet Union sought to overcome the existing backlog, to catch up with its rival. Therefore, the period after the Caribbean crisis in relations between the USSR and the USA was extremely contradictory: an intensified arms race was combined with a desire for mutually acceptable agreements, to eliminate the possibility of a new dangerous international crisis.

policy of President Kennedy. Not coincidentally, a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis was settled, Kennedy fell stricken by an assassin's bullets in Dallas. As for Khrushchev, he was criticized in Moscow both for the fact that he went to deploy Soviet missiles in Cuba without considering all the consequences of this step, and for the fact that he agreed to remove Soviet offensive weapons from the island under American pressure. The Caribbean crisis became one of the arguments of Khrushchev's opponents during his dismissal from the highest party and government posts in October 1964.

The USSR and the USA were ready to introduce some elements of cooperative bipolarity into their relations, that is, to agree to such agreements that would consolidate their position as guarantors of the Yalta-Potsdam system and at the same time reduce the risk of a collision between them.

Nuclear weapons played an enormous role in the existing system of international relations. By 1962, the United States (since 1945), the USSR (since 1949), Great Britain (since 1952), France (since 1960) possessed it, later China joined them (in 1964).

Since the autumn of 1958, negotiations between three states (USSR, USA, Great Britain) on the termination of nuclear tests were held in Geneva. The cessation of experimental explosions of atomic and hydrogen weapons would contribute to the protection of the environment of our planet and would put some barriers in the way of further improvement of weapons of mass destruction. Both the USSR and the USA were interested in concluding such an agreement, because both powers conducted a large number of experimental explosions, worked out the technology for the production of nuclear weapons and accumulated their stocks. However, American representatives insisted on mandatory on-site inspections to verify the test ban, and the leadership of the Soviet military-industrial complex strongly objected to the admission of foreign inspectors to secret facilities in the USSR. Then the negotiations were transferred to the Disarmament Committee (Committee of 18), formed by the UN in March 1962. However, the differences between the American and Soviet positions did not allow a positive result to be achieved there either. The main disagreement concerned the verification of the prohibition of underground tests.

Then, on July 2, 1963, the Soviet government announced its readiness to conclude an agreement on the cessation of nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. In the new international situation that developed after the Caribbean crisis, during the negotiations in Moscow between representatives of the governments of the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in July 1963, it was possible to develop and initial the text of the agreement based on the proposals of the Soviet side.

On August 5, the foreign ministers of the three states signed in Moscow the "Treaty on the Ban on Tests of Nuclear Weapons in the Atmosphere, Outer Space and Under Water" between the governments of the USSR, Great Britain and the USA. The parties to the Moscow Treaty pledged to “prohibit, prevent and not carry out any nuclear weapon test explosions and any other nuclear explosions” in the atmosphere, outside it, including outer space, under water and in any other environment, if such an explosion causes radioactive fallout outside the borders of this state. In fact, the Moscow Treaty forbade nuclear testing in three environments: in the atmosphere, in space and under water. The contract was indefinite. Control over compliance with the treaty was provided by the national funds of the participants.

The Moscow Treaty did not block all possibilities for improving nuclear weapons. However, it has become a positive international agreement. The treaty helped to improve the state of the environment by stopping its dangerous pollution. It was a step towards subsequent arms control arrangements.

The Three Wednesday Nuclear Test Ban Treaty entered into force on 10 October 1963 after the exchange of instruments of ratification between its three original parties. Within two months, more than a hundred states signed the treaty. Unfortunately, at that moment, France, China and some other states refused to join the treaty, which weakened its effectiveness.

The next step towards limiting the arms race was taken in January 1967 with the signing by the USSR, the USA and Great Britain of an agreement on the use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies. The treaty provided for the use of the Moon and other celestial bodies exclusively for peaceful purposes, and also prohibited the launching into space of objects with nuclear weapons or any other types of weapons of mass destruction. The agreements between the USSR and the USA created a more favorable environment for limiting the spread of atomic weapons. In 1967, an agreement was signed to ban nuclear weapons in Latin America.

3. 3 Assessment of the Caribbean crisis in historiography

In historiography, the results of the Caribbean crisis for the USSR are assessed ambiguously. Researchers of the Soviet period considered them within the framework of the official version of events. They consider the main result of the events of October 1962 in the Caribbean to be the prevention of a thermonuclear war between the USSR and the USA, the elimination of US missile bases in Turkey and Italy, and the defense of revolutionary Cuba from American aggression. A. A. Fursenko and T. Naftali join this point of view, arguing that “the guarantee of non-aggression against Cuba received from the President of the United States compensated for the energy, nerves and colossal funds spent on the hasty deployment of ballistic missiles in the tropics” .

Some modern historians consider the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis to be Khrushchev's defeat. For example, N. Werth claims that as a result of the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba under the control of the United States, the USSR was deeply humiliated, and its prestige was severely undermined. V. N. Shevelev considers the impact of the Caribbean crisis on the relations between the USSR and the countries of the "socialist camp", believing that the events in question accelerated the gap between the Soviet Union and China.

The third group of researchers (D. Boffa, R. Pikhoy) single out both positive and negative consequences of the Caribbean crisis for the USSR. In particular, R. Pikhoya noted that the USSR won a military-strategic victory, since the existing missile bases in Turkey and Italy were eliminated, and the inviolability of the territory of Cuba was guaranteed. In political and propaganda aspects, the outcome of the crisis is the victory of the United States, which began to look like a victim of Soviet expansionism, effective defenders of the Western hemisphere; The Monroe Doctrine was given a second life.

Thus, the results of the Caribbean crisis became the subject of discussion in historiography. It should be noted that one of the foreign policy goals of deploying missiles in Cuba - the protection of the regime of F. Castro from US aggression - was fully implemented. The main significance of the defense of Cuba is that, as a result of the Caribbean crisis, the Soviet Union confirmed its status as a great power, the leader of the socialist camp, capable of supporting an ally. As for achieving military-strategic parity between the USSR and the USA, this task was partially solved. It was not possible to save the nuclear missile base on the American continent, but the American Jupiter missiles, in accordance with the agreement, were taken out of Turkey and Italy. The impact of the events of October 1962 in the Caribbean region on world public opinion was of a dual nature. On the one hand, for part of the public, the elimination of Soviet bases in Cuba under US control really looked like a "humiliation" and "defeat" of the Soviet Union. However, many, on the contrary, regarded the Soviet military presence in Cuba as a sign that the USSR is a powerful power that has weapons capable of inflicting a tangible blow on America, and the agreement of the Soviet government to compromise in order to avoid an escalation of the conflict as evidence of the peaceful nature of the foreign policy of the USSR and generosity of the head of the Soviet state.

As for the influence of the events in question on the situation in the "socialist camp", it should be noted that they led to a temporary aggravation of relations between the USSR and Cuba and deepening of the conflict between the Soviet Union and China. At the end of the "public" phase of the Caribbean crisis, Fidel Castro subjected N. S. Khrushchev's course of action to sharp criticism. F. Castro was dissatisfied not only with the conclusion of an agreement between Khrushchev and Kennedy on the dismantling of missiles and their return to the Soviet Union, which Cuba considered capitulation, but also the fact that this agreement was reached without prior consultations with the Cuban leadership. F. Castro's letter to N. S. Khrushchev, written on October 31, indicates that the Cuban leader from the very beginning understood the purpose of the USSR missile base in Cuba in his own way. He believed that missile weapons were being installed in Cuba not only and not so much to protect the island from a possible attack by American armed forces, but to level the strategic balance between the "socialist camp" and the capitalist countries. F. Castro, in particular, stated: “Don’t you think, Comrade Khrushchev, that we selfishly thought about ourselves, about our generous people, ready to sacrifice themselves, and not in an unconscious way, but with full awareness of the danger to which they were exposed? Many Cubans experience moments of indescribable bitterness and sadness at this moment.

The Cuban missile crisis completed the split in Soviet-Chinese relations that began in 1957. According to most researchers, it was caused by Mao Zedong's criticism of the processes of de-Stalinization in the USSR, as well as the course announced by N. S. Khrushchev for peaceful coexistence with Western countries. In addition, a significant role, according to D. A. Volkogonov, was played by the personal hostility of the Soviet and Chinese leaders. Mao Zedong called the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba a "gamble", and Kennedy regarded the compromise between Khrushchev as "surrender to imperialism."

Khrushchev's agreement with Kennedy aggravated Soviet relations with Cuba and China.

The authorities tried to use the peaceful outcome of the Caribbean crisis to establish in the minds of the Soviet people the thesis about the peaceful nature of Soviet foreign policy. This conclusion allows us to draw an analysis of the materials of the newspapers Izvestia and Pravda for the end of October - the beginning of November 1962. The settlement of the conflict, Khrushchev's agreement to dismantle Soviet missile installations in Cuba - the main topic of publications in the central press until mid-November 1962. Repeatedly emphasized that the main result of the activities of the Soviet government in the days of confrontation with the United States is the preservation of peace. This is indicated by the headlines and content of numerous analytical articles, the nature of the statements on this subject by the leaders of many countries of the world, and finally, the reviews of the Soviet and world public published in the press about the messages of N. S. Khrushchev D. Kennedy, which contained a formula for overcoming the crisis. So, on October 28, in Izvestia, under the heading "The policy of peace has triumphed", D. Nehru's message to the head of the Soviet government was published, in which, among other things, he expressed "ardent approval of the wisdom and courage" shown by Khrushchev "in connection with the situation, formed around Cuba. Similar thoughts are expressed in his message to N. S. Khrushchev by the Brazilian Prime Minister E. Lima, who said that Khrushchev's message to Kennedy is “the most long-awaited and encouraging news for the whole world, putting an end to the Cuban crisis, saving world peace and ensuring territorial the integrity of Cuba."

CONCLUSION

A sign of the bipolar system of the post-war world was the political, ideological and military confrontation between the conflicting blocs, which were united around the USSR and the USA. One of the most dangerous crises in relations between them was the events that went down in history as the Caribbean Crisis of 1962.

Berlin Crisis.

The confrontation around Berlin in August 1961 was only the beginning of a chronic crisis that culminated in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Soviet nuclear missiles were placed in Cuba, among other things, to serve as an advantage in negotiations over the Berlin problem. Nevertheless, with the settlement of the Caribbean crisis, it became clear that an agreement on Berlin could not be reached without violating the three “vital” conditions for the West, on the immutability of which the United States continued to insist. Instead, attention was focused on the equally important issue of limiting the arms race. The Treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, which was signed in August 1963, was in fact a certain "hidden" agreement on German and Berlin issues. The formal recognition of the GDR took place, since it was eventually allowed to sign the treaty, like the FRG, which prevented the remilitarization of the latter. In turn, N. Khrushchev assured that the USSR would recognize the three conditions of the West and would no longer initiate pressure on West Berlin.

The United States considered forcing Moscow to look for a way to avoid a war and return the spirals of confrontation back, the White House considered options for "exchanging" Berlin for Cuba. In the end, the way out of the acute crisis situation, the beginning of the weakening of the confrontation between the USSR and the USA led to the end of the Caribbean crisis.

1. Cold War: New Documents on the Caribbean Crisis of 1962. Documents of Russian History: Supplement to Rodina Magazine. - 2002. - No. 5 (59). - P. 34-40.

4. Kissinger G. Diplomacy Per. from English. – M.: Nauch. -ed. Center Ladomir, 1997.– 847 p.

5. Kornienko G. M. “Cold War”: evidence of its participant. Memoirs. 2nd ed. - M.: OLMA-Press, 2001. - 413 p.

6. Khrushchev N. Cuban Missile Crisis. Events almost got out of control of the Kremlin and the White House // International Affairs. - 2002. - No. 5. – P. 57–79.

8. Yazov D. T. Caribbean Crisis. Forty years later: [memories]. -M.: Megapir, 2006. -455 p.

9. Borkov A. A. Caribbean crisis of 1962 and its legal and political lessons Pravo. Business. Population: All-Russian Materials. scientific - pract. conf., 2022 Sept. 2000: At 3 hours - Dneprodzerzhinsk, 2000. - Part 2: Business and population: sociological aspects. – S. 228-238.

10. Brogan H. John Kennedy. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1997. - 384 p.

11. Gribkov Z. I. Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - S. 15-20.

13. Martyanov I. Yu. Activities of the political leadership of the USSR during the Caribbean crisis and public opinion: Abstract of the thesis. dis. ... cand. ist. Sciences: 07. 00. 02. - M., 2006. - 22 p.

14. Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. – M.: Academia, 2006. – 1071

15. Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War (1945 - 1985). New reading. – M.: Intern. relations, 1995. - S. 283-302.

Gribkov Z. I . Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - P. 15.

Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 180.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. – M.: Academia, 2006. – P. 95.

Chubaryan A. O. New history of the cold war // New and recent history. - 1997. - No. 6. – P. 3.

Gribkov Z. I . Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - P. 16.

Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 193.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. – M.: Academia, 2006. – P. 102.

Yazov D.T. Caribbean Crisis. Forty years later: [memories]. - M.: Megapir, 2006. - S. 112.

Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War (1945-1985). New reading. – M.: Intern. relations, 1995. - S. 283.

Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 132.

Brogan H. John Kennedy. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1997. - P. 99.

Khrushchev N. The Birth of a Superpower: A Book about a Father. - M.: Time, 2002. - S. 145.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. – M.: Academia, 2006. – P. 148.

Fursenko A. A. The Caribbean crisis of 1962. New materials // New and recent history. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 66.

Ivanyan E. A. From George Washington to George Bush. White House and press. - M.: Politizdat, 1991. - S. 201.

Kissinger G. Diplomacy / Per. from English. – M.: Nauch. -ed. Center "Ladomir", 1997. - S. 127.

Brogan H. John Kennedy. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1997. - P. 104.

Kennedy John F. Profiles of Courage. - M.: International relations, 2005. - S. 304.

Kissinger G. Diplomacy / Per. from English. – M.: Nauch. -ed. center "Ladomir", 1997. - S. 219.

Gribkov Z. I .

"Ladomir", 1997. - S. 265.

Chubaryan A. O. New history of the cold war // New and recent history. - 1997. - No. 6. – P. 7.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M.: Academia, 2006. - S. 320.

Gribkov Z. I . Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - P. 17.

Kornienko G. M. “Cold War”: evidence of its participant. Memoirs. 2nd ed. - M.: OLMA-Press, 2001. - S. 104.

There. - S. 106.

Martyanov I.Yu. The activity of the political leadership of the USSR during the Caribbean crisis and public opinion: Abstract of the thesis. dis. ... cand. ist. Sciences: 07. 00. 02. - M., 2006. - P. 10.

Fursenko A. A. The Caribbean crisis of 1962. New materials // New and recent history. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 70.

Diplomats remember: The world through the eyes of veterans of the diplomatic service: [Collection] / Ed. P. P. Petrik. - M .: Scientific book, 1997. - S. 250.

Khrushchev N. The Birth of a Superpower: A Book about a Father. - M.: Time, 2002. - S. 187.

Kornienko G. M. “Cold War”: evidence of its participant. Memoirs. 2nd ed. - M.: OLMA-Press, 2001. - S. 211.

There. - S. 213-216.

Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War (1945-1985). New reading. – M.: Intern. relations, 1995. - S. 297.

Chubaryan A. O. New history of the cold war // New and recent history. - 1997. - No. 6. – P. 10.

Kissinger G. Diplomacy / Per. from English. – M.: Nauch. -ed. center "Ladomir", 1997. - S. 580.

Gribkov Z. I .

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. – M.: Academia, 2006. – S. 596.

Borkov A. A. Caribbean crisis of 1962 and its legal and political lessons // Law. Business. Population: All-Russian Materials. scientific - pract. conf., 20-22 Sept. 2000: At 3 hours - Dneprodzerzhinsk, 2000. - Part 2: Business and population: sociological aspects. – S. 230.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M.: Academia, 2006. - S. 650.

Fursenko A. A. The Caribbean crisis of 1962. New materials // New and recent history. - 1998. - No. 5. - P. 67.

Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 322.

Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 326.

Soviet foreign policy during the Cold War (1945-1985). New reading. – M.: Intern. relations, 1995. - S. 290.

Gribkov Z. I . Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - P. 18.

Mikoyan S. A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M.: Academia, 2006. - S. 349.

Historian Klim Zhukov:

In the early 1960s, a story happened that almost led the world to the Third World War. It began in Washington, continued in Turkish Izmir, reached the highest point of tension in Cuba, and then involved a good half of the planet, frozen in anxious expectation. The Cubans call those events the Crisis de Octubre, but we are more familiar with the Caribbean Crisis.

The end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s was a period of considerable growth in the tension of the international situation. Only fifteen years have passed since the happy year of 1945, but history seemed to teach nothing to the main interests of big politics. The generals clanged their armor with a deafening roar: the arms race was gaining momentum. The fact that these weapons were, among other things, nuclear, gave the situation "special languor."

It seemed that realpolitikists were so busy sparking all over the world that any of these sparks could ignite a monstrous global fire.

Judge for yourself:

1950 The United States unleashes a war in Korea, and only the help of the USSR and China saves the young republic in the north of the peninsula.

1953. The CIA and Mi-6 conduct Operation Ajax to overthrow the legitimate government Mohammed Masadegh in Iran.

1954 Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz had the imprudence to carry out a number of important land reforms in his own country, infringing on the interests of the international giant United Fruit Company. The US staged a coup supported by direct military intervention. Operation PBSUCCESS brought the fascist regime of Castillo Armas to power, dooming a sovereign country to forty years of ongoing civil war.

1956 President Dwight Eisenhower authorizes the US invasion of Lebanon and sends US warships to Taiwan, threatening the PRC with military force.

1961 The United States is trying to stifle the revolution in Cuba with the help of mercenaries. The operation in the Bay of Pigs ends in complete failure, and Cuba is literally pushed into the arms of the only country that at that moment was able to provide effective support - the USSR.

This is how both previous World Wars began - with a series of local conflicts and "light, non-committal" interventions.

The main goal, of course, was not Cuba or Guatemala or even China, but the USSR. For maximum persuasiveness with a liberal Kennedy The United States deployed Jupiter medium-range nuclear missiles in Turkey - in Izmir. Flight time to targets in the Union was about 10 minutes.

The Soviet government could not but react. After all, it was ridiculous even to compare the nuclear potentials of both countries. The US had 6,000 warheads, and the USSR only 300. The US could launch an armada of 1,300 strategic bombers into the sky, and nine nuclear cruisers with Polaris missiles on board into the sea. The USSR needed an urgent asymmetric response when the US literally gave it away, forcing Fidel Castro to move closer to Moscow.

On June 20, 1962, Operation Anadyr began to relocate to Cuba a group of missile forces with technical support and cover units. Directly supervised the operation General Issa Aleksandrovich Pliev. By the way, he belonged to the cohort that various half-educated people used to call "stupid Budenov cavalrymen." The stupid cavalryman carried out the most complex set of events brilliantly.

24 R-14 missiles and 36 R-12 missiles with launchers and personnel, two regiments of cruise missiles with Luna tactical missiles, four motorized rifle regiments, two air defense divisions, a fighter aviation regiment and a separate fighter squadron (more than 50 aircraft in total), a helicopter regiment, a coastal defense regiment with 8 Sopka missile launchers, 11 submarines, 2 cruisers, destroyers and mine-torpedo ships - all this was delivered to Cuba quickly, accurately and on time. And most importantly, in secret. Until mid-October, Washington did not suspect that 70 Soviet megatons of TNT were located in a quarter of an hour's flight. Here is such a "stupid cavalryman" was Issa Pliev.

Nevertheless, it was unrealistic to hide the sharp intensification of Soviet cargo transportation. Regular overflights of U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, which were considered invulnerable to air defense systems, were able to reveal the deployment of strategic missiles. On October 15, another portion of the photographic films was deciphered, and Kennedy, who had already declared in Congress on September 4 that there were no Soviet missiles in Cuba, was forced to admit that he got a little excited with such conclusions. The US Army and Navy have been placed on DEFCON-3 combat readiness. On October 20, a naval blockade of Cuba began.

Blockade, as you know, is an act of war. Thus, the United States unilaterally acted with aggression against a sovereign state. After all, the deployment of missiles could not violate any international rules and agreements, but the blockade could and did. In fact, since the opening of the “quarantine” of Cuba, the world has been on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe. From now on, any accident could start an uncontrollable chain reaction - it was worth it for someone to pass the nerves.

So, the B-59 submarine of the USSR Navy, which broke through to the coast of Cuba, was blocked by US destroyers and fired from an aircraft. Since the destroyers were jamming communications, the ship's commander decided that a war had begun and was ready to fire a volley in nuclear equipment. And only the composure of the first mate, captain of the 2nd rank, Vasily Arkhipov, saved the situation. The code phrase "Stop provocations" was a response to the shelling. But everything could easily turn out differently, the situation was so tense when everything depended on the performers on the ground. The reputable gentlemen in Washington sowed such a wind that the world almost reaped a whirlwind. In the corridors of big diplomacy, naturally and expectedly, there were cries of “what are we for ?!”

On October 23, Kennedy demanded Ambassador of the USSR Dobrynin to ensure that Soviet ships will comply with the conditions of maritime quarantine. To which Dobrynin pointed out the illegality of the blockade and the obvious absurdity of the demands of the American side.

The US military received the DEFCON-2 combat readiness level. For understanding: DEFCON-1 is actually the beginning of full-scale military operations.

At this time in the UN Security Council fought like a lion Soviet representative Valerian Aleksandrovich Zorin, a US Air Force Chief of Staff Curtis LeMay demanded to open hostilities, up to a nuclear strike on the USSR. The "Tokyo Inquisitor", who burned more than 80,000 people alive in the capital of Japan on March 10, 1945, was generally a prominent specialist in "blowing into the Stone Age."

On October 27, a missile from the S-75 Dvina air defense system shot down an "invulnerable" U-2 over Cuba. The pilot is dead. Kennedy's military advisers demanded an order for an immediate forceful response, but the president, fortunately for everyone, turned out to be either weak or prudent enough to completely block such initiatives. "Black Saturday" - the day when the world was teetering on a razor's edge.

He summoned Soviet Ambassador Dobrynin, declaring that the United States was ready for a diplomatic settlement. A telegram went to Moscow:

“1) You (USSR) agree to withdraw your weapons systems from Cuba under the appropriate supervision of UN representatives, and also to take steps, subject to appropriate security measures, to stop the supply of such weapons systems to Cuba.

2) We, for our part, will agree - provided that a system of adequate measures is created with the help of the UN to ensure the fulfillment of these obligations - a) quickly lift the blockade measures introduced at the moment and b) give guarantees of non-aggression against Cuba.

Negotiations began. The result was a discharge. America removed the Jupiter and Thor missiles from Turkey and Europe and guaranteed Cuba against military aggression. The USSR, in response, had to withdraw strategic forces from the Island of Freedom.

So historical practice once again confirmed the old truth: si vis pacem - para bellum, if you want peace, prepare for war. This is a serious lesson to contemporaries. Imperialist circles understand only one language, and that is the language of force. Fortunately, there are still missiles on duty, originally from the USSR, equipped with a thermonuclear filling, originally from the same place. As long as this is the case, and as long as there is a strong will to use them in the event of aggression, another world massacre is unlikely. And the heroes of the Anadyr operation played an important role in this, proving that there is no action that does not give rise to opposition.

In historiography, the results of the Caribbean crisis for the USSR are assessed ambiguously. Researchers of the Soviet period considered them within the framework of the official version of events. They consider the main result of the events of October 1962 in the Caribbean to be the prevention of a thermonuclear war between the USSR and the USA, the elimination of US missile bases in Turkey and Italy, and the defense of revolutionary Cuba from American aggression. A.A. Fursenko and T. Naftali, who argued that “the guarantee of non-aggression on Cuba received from the US President compensated for the energy, nerves and colossal funds spent on the hasty deployment of ballistic missiles in the tropics” Fursenko A. A. Caribbean crisis of 1962. New materials / / New and recent history. - 1998. - No. 5. - S. 67 ..

Some modern historians consider the outcome of the Cuban Missile Crisis to be Khrushchev's defeat. For example, N. Werth claims that as a result of the withdrawal of Soviet missiles from Cuba under the control of the United States, the USSR was deeply humiliated, and its prestige was severely undermined. V.N. Shevelev examines the impact of the Caribbean Crisis on the relations between the USSR and the countries of the "socialist camp", believing that the events in question accelerated the gap between the Soviet Union and China. Cold War. 1945-1963 Historical retrospective. Digest of articles. - M.: OLMA-PRESS, 2003. - S. 322 ..

Thus, the results of the Caribbean crisis became the subject of discussion in historiography. It should be noted that one of the foreign policy goals of deploying missiles in Cuba - the protection of the regime of F. Castro from US aggression - was fully implemented. The main significance of the defense of Cuba is that, as a result of the Caribbean crisis, the Soviet Union confirmed its status as a great power, the leader of the socialist camp, capable of supporting an ally. As for achieving military-strategic parity between the USSR and the USA, this task was partially solved. It was not possible to save the nuclear missile base on the American continent, but the American Jupiter missiles, in accordance with the agreement, were taken out of Turkey and Italy. The impact of the events of October 1962 in the Caribbean region on world public opinion was of a dual nature. On the one hand, for part of the public, the liquidation of Soviet bases in Cuba under US control really looked like a "humiliation" and "defeat" of the Soviet Union. However, many, on the contrary, regarded the Soviet military presence in Cuba as a sign that the USSR is a powerful power that has weapons capable of inflicting a tangible blow on America, and the agreement of the Soviet government to compromise in order to avoid an escalation of the conflict - as evidence of the peaceful nature of the foreign policy of the USSR and generosity of the head of the Soviet state Soviet foreign policy during the years of the Cold War (1945 - 1985). New reading. - M.: Intern. relations, 1995. - S. 290 ..

As for the influence of the events in question on the situation in the "socialist camp", it should be noted that they led to a temporary aggravation of relations between the USSR and Cuba and deepening of the conflict between the Soviet Union and China. At the end of the "public" phase of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Fidel Castro subjected N.S. Khrushchev sharply criticized. F. Castro was dissatisfied not only with the conclusion of an agreement between Khrushchev and Kennedy on the dismantling of missiles and their return to the Soviet Union, which Cuba considered capitulation, but also the fact that this agreement was reached without prior consultations with the Cuban leadership. Letter from F. Castro to N.S. Khrushchev, written on October 31, indicates that the Cuban leader from the very beginning understood the purpose of the USSR missile base in Cuba in his own way. He believed that missile weapons were being installed in Cuba not only and not so much to protect the island from a possible attack by American armed forces, but to level the strategic balance between the "socialist camp" and the capitalist countries. F. Castro, in particular, stated: “Don’t you think, Comrade Khrushchev, that we selfishly thought about ourselves, about our generous people, ready to sacrifice themselves, and not in an unconscious way, but with full awareness of the danger to which they were exposed? Many Cubans experience moments of indescribable bitterness and sadness at this moment ” Mikoyan S.A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M.: Academia, 2006. - S. 349 ..

The Caribbean crisis completed the split in Soviet-Chinese relations that began in 1957. The reasons for it, according to most researchers, were Mao Zedong's criticism of the de-Stalinization processes in the USSR, as well as N.S. Khrushchev's course towards peaceful coexistence with the countries of the West. In addition, a significant role, according to D.A. Volkogonov, played the personal hostility of the Soviet and Chinese leaders. Mao Zedong called the deployment of Soviet missiles in Cuba a "gamble", and Kennedy regarded the compromise between Khrushchev as "surrender to imperialism."

Thus, as a result of the Caribbean crisis, on the one hand, the USSR confirmed its status as the leader of the "socialist camp", showing that it was able to protect the allied regime from aggression. On the other hand, Khrushchev's agreement with Kennedy aggravated the USSR's relations with Cuba and China Gribkov Z.I. . Caribbean Crisis // Military History Journal. - 1993. - No. 1. - S. 18 ..

The authorities tried to use the peaceful outcome of the Caribbean crisis to establish in the minds of the Soviet people the thesis about the peaceful nature of Soviet foreign policy. Such a conclusion allows us to draw an analysis of the materials of the newspapers Izvestia and Pravda for the end of October - the beginning of November 1962. The settlement of the conflict, Khrushchev's agreement to dismantle Soviet missile installations in Cuba - the main topic of publications in the central press until mid-November 1962. Repeatedly emphasized that the main result of the activities of the Soviet government in the days of confrontation with the United States is the preservation of peace. This is indicated by the headlines and content of numerous analytical articles, the nature of the statements on this subject by the leaders of many countries of the world, and finally, the reviews of the Soviet and world public about N.S. Khrushchev D. Kennedy, which contained a formula for overcoming the crisis. So, on October 28, in Izvestia, under the heading "The policy of peace has triumphed", D. Nehru's message to the head of the Soviet government was published, in which, among other things, he expressed "ardent approval of the wisdom and courage" shown by Khrushchev "in connection with the situation, around Cuba" Mikoyan S.A. Anatomy of the Caribbean crisis. - M .: Academia, 2006. - S. 349 .. N.S. expresses similar thoughts in his message. Khrushchev and Brazilian Prime Minister E. Lima, who said that Khrushchev's message to Kennedy is "the most long-awaited and encouraging news for the whole world, putting an end to the Cuban crisis, saving world peace and ensuring the territorial integrity of Cuba."

Portal for the student. Self-training

§2.1 Development and aggravation of the crisis: modern research

§2.2 Resolution of the Caribbean crisis: a vision in the 21st century

Chapter III. The Historical Significance of the Caribbean Crisis: Modern Science Approaches

§3.1 Detention of international tension as a result of the resolution of the Caribbean crisis

§3.2 Caribbean crisis as a turning point in the Cold War

CONCLUSION

LIST OF USED LITERATURE

INTRODUCTION

1. 2 Caribbean crisis as a reflection and component of the Cold War

3.1 Geopolitical implications of the conflict

3.2 The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Limitation of Nuclear Weapons

CONCLUSION

INTRODUCTION

1. THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE COLD WAR: PROBLEM ASPECTS

1. 1 "Cold War": essence and periodization

1. 2 The Caribbean crisis as a reflection and component of the Cold War

2. ROLE J. KENNEDY AND N. KHRUSHCHEV IN SETTLEMENT OF THE CARIBBEAN CONFLICT

2. 1 Kennedy's position on the Caribbean conflict

2. 2 The reaction of N. Khrushchev and the leadership of the USSR to the escalation of the Caribbean crisis

3. HISTORICAL LESSONS AND CONSEQUENCES OF THE CARIBBEAN CRISIS

3. 3 Assessment of the Caribbean crisis in historiography

CONCLUSION

RELATED ARTICLES